Russia was the first to order a partial mobilisation of its armies on 24–25 July, and when on 28 July Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Russia declared general mobilisation on 30 July.[13] Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Being outnumbered on the Eastern Front, Russia urged its Triple Entente ally France to open up a second front in the west.

Japan entered the war on the side of the Allies on 23 August 1914, seizing the opportunity of Germany's distraction with the European War to expand its sphere of influence in China and the Pacific.

Over forty years earlier in 1870, the Franco-Prussian War had ended the Second French Empire and France had ceded the provinces of Alsace-Lorraine to a unified Germany. Bitterness over that defeat and the determination to retake Alsace-Lorraine made the acceptance of Russia's plea for help an easy choice, so France began full mobilisation on 1 August and, on 3 August, Germany declared war on France, the border between France and Germany was heavily fortified on both sides so, according to the Schlieffen Plan, Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France from the north, leading the United Kingdom to declare war on Germany on 4 August due to their violation of Belgian neutrality.[14][15]

By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist. National borders were redrawn, with nine independent nations restored or created,[16] and Germany's colonies were parcelled out among the victors, during the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four powers (Britain, France, the United States and Italy) imposed their terms in a series of treaties. The League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict, this effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation (particularly in Germany) eventually contributed to the start of World War II.

Names

From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, the First World War was called simply the World War or the Great War and thereafter the First World War or World War I.[17][18] At the time, it was also sometimes called "the war to end war" or "the war to end all wars" due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation.[19]

In Canada, Maclean's magazine in October 1914 wrote, "Some wars name themselves, this is the Great War."[20] During the interwar period (1918–1939), the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries.

The term "First World War" was first used in September 1914 by the German biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel, who claimed that "there is no doubt that the course and character of the feared 'European War' ... will become the first world war in the full sense of the word,"[21] citing a wire service report in The Indianapolis Star on 20 September 1914. After the onset of the Second World War in 1939, the terms World War I or the First World War became standard, with British and Canadian historians favouring the First World War, and Americans World War I.[22]

In the introduction to his book, Waterloo in 100 Objects, historian Gareth Glover states: "This opening statement will cause some bewilderment to many who have grown up with the appellation of the Great War firmly applied to the 1914–18 First World War, but to anyone living before 1918, the title of the Great War was applied to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars in which Britain fought France almost continuously for twenty-two years from 1793 to 1815."[23] In 1911, the historian John Holland Rose published a book titled William Pitt and the Great War.

Background

Rival military coalitions in 1914; Triple Entente in green; Triple Alliance in brown. Only the Triple Alliance was a formal "alliance"; the others listed were informal patterns of support.

Political and military alliances

During the 19th century, the major European powers went to great lengths to maintain a balance of power throughout Europe, resulting in the existence of a complex network of political and military alliances throughout the continent by 1900,[24] these began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria. When Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors (German: Dreikaiserbund) between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany. This agreement failed because Austria-Hungary and Russia could not agree over Balkan policy, leaving Germany and Austria-Hungary in an alliance formed in 1879, called the Dual Alliance, this was seen as a method of countering Russian influence in the Balkans as the Ottoman Empire continued to weaken.[10] This alliance expanded in 1882 to include Italy, in what became the Triple Alliance.[25]

Bismarck had especially worked to hold Russia at Germany's side in an effort to avoid a two-front war with France and Russia. When Wilhelm II ascended to the throne as German Emperor (Kaiser), Bismarck was compelled to retire and his system of alliances was gradually de-emphasised. For example, the Kaiser refused, in 1890, to renew the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia. Two years later, the Franco-Russian Alliance was signed to counteract the force of the Triple Alliance; in 1904, Britain signed a series of agreements with France, the Entente Cordiale, and in 1907, Britain and Russia signed the Anglo-Russian Convention. While these agreements did not formally ally Britain with France or Russia, they made British entry into any future conflict involving France or Russia a possibility, and the system of interlocking bilateral agreements became known as the Triple Entente.[10]

Arms race

German industrial and economic power had grown greatly after unification and the foundation of the Empire in 1871 following the Franco-Prussian War. From the mid-1890s on, the government of Wilhelm II used this base to devote significant economic resources for building up the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial German Navy), established by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, in rivalry with the British Royal Navy for world naval supremacy.[26] As a result, each nation strove to out-build the other in capital ships, with the launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1906, the British Empire expanded on its significant advantage over its German rival.[26] The arms race between Britain and Germany eventually extended to the rest of Europe, with all the major powers devoting their industrial base to producing the equipment and weapons necessary for a pan-European conflict.[27] Between 1908 and 1913, the military spending of the European powers increased by 50%.[28]

About an hour later, when Ferdinand was returning from a visit at the Sarajevo Hospital with those wounded in the assassination attempt, the convoy took a wrong turn into a street where, by coincidence, Princip stood, with a pistol, Princip shot and killed Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. The reaction among the people in Austria was mild, almost indifferent, as historian Zbyněk Zeman later wrote, "the event almost failed to make any impression whatsoever. On Sunday and Monday (28 and 29 June), the crowds in Vienna listened to music and drank wine, as if nothing had happened."[33][34] Nevertheless, the political impact of the murder of the heir to the throne was significant and has been described as a "9/11 effect", a terrorist event charged with historic meaning, transforming the political chemistry in Vienna.[35] And although they were not personally close, the Emperor Franz Joseph was profoundly shocked and upset.

Expansion of violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Austro-Hungarian authorities encouraged the subsequent anti-Serb riots in Sarajevo, in which Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks killed two Bosnian Serbs and damaged numerous Serb-owned buildings.[36][37] Violent actions against ethnic Serbs were also organised outside Sarajevo, in other cities in Austro-Hungarian-controlled Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia. Austro-Hungarian authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina imprisoned and extradited approximately 5,500 prominent Serbs, 700 to 2,200 of whom died in prison. A further 460 Serbs were sentenced to death. A predominantly Bosniak special militia known as the Schutzkorps was established and carried out the persecution of Serbs.[38][39][40][41]

July Crisis

The assassination led to a month of diplomatic manoeuvring between Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, France and Britain, called the July Crisis. Believing correctly that Serbian officials (especially the officers of the Black Hand) were involved in the plot to murder the Archduke, and wanting to finally end Serbian interference in Bosnia,[42] Austria-Hungary delivered to Serbia on 23 July the July Ultimatum, a series of ten demands that were made intentionally unacceptable, in an effort to provoke a war with Serbia.[43] Serbia decreed general mobilisation on the 25th. Serbia accepted all of the terms of the ultimatum except for article six, which demanded that Austrian delegates be allowed in Serbia for the purpose of participation in the investigation into the assassination.[44] Following this, Austria broke off diplomatic relations with Serbia and, the next day ordered a partial mobilisation. Finally, on 28 July 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.

On 29 July, Russia, in support of Serbia, declared partial mobilisation against Austria-Hungary,[13] on the 30th, Russia ordered general mobilisation. German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg waited until the 31st for an appropriate response, when Germany declared a "state of danger of war".[this quote needs a citation] Kaiser Wilhelm II asked his cousin, Tsar Nicolas II, to suspend the Russian general mobilisation. When he refused, Germany issued an ultimatum demanding its mobilisation be stopped, and a commitment not to support Serbia. Another was sent to France, asking her not to support Russia if it were to come to the defence of Serbia, on 1 August, after the Russian response, Germany mobilised and declared war on Russia. This also led to the general mobilisation in Austria-Hungary on 4 August.

The German government issued demands to France that it remain neutral as they had to decide which deployment plan to implement, it being difficult if not impossible to change the deployment whilst it was underway, the modified German Schlieffen Plan, Aufmarsch II West, would deploy 80% of the army in the west, and Aufmarsch I Ost and Aufmarsch II Ost would deploy 60% in the west and 40% in the east as this was the maximum that the East Prussian railway infrastructure could carry. The French did not respond, but sent a mixed message by ordering their troops to withdraw 10 km (6 mi) from the border to avoid any incidents, and at the same time ordered the mobilisation of her reserves. Germany responded by mobilising its own reserves and implementing Aufmarsch II West, on 1 August Wilhelm ordered General Moltke to "march the whole of the … army to the East" after he had been wrongly informed that the British would remain neutral as long as France was not attacked. The General convinced the Kaiser that improvising the redeployment of a million men was unthinkable and that making it possible for the French to attack the Germans "in the rear" might prove disastrous. Yet Wilhelm insisted that the German army should not march into Luxembourg until he received a telegram sent by his cousin George V, who made it clear that there had been a misunderstanding. Eventually the Kaiser told Moltke, "Now you can do what you want."[45][46] Germany attacked Luxembourg on 2 August, and on 3 August declared war on France, on 4 August, after Belgium refused to permit German troops to cross its borders into France, Germany declared war on Belgium as well.[47][48][49] Britain declared war on Germany at 19:00 UTC on 4 August 1914 (effective from 11 pm), following an "unsatisfactory reply" to the British ultimatum that Belgium must be kept neutral.[50]

Progress of the war

Opening hostilities

Confusion among the Central Powers

The strategy of the Central Powers suffered from miscommunication. Germany had promised to support Austria-Hungary's invasion of Serbia, but interpretations of what this meant differed. Previously tested deployment plans had been replaced early in 1914, but those had never been tested in exercises. Austro-Hungarian leaders believed Germany would cover its northern flank against Russia.[51] Germany, however, envisioned Austria-Hungary directing most of its troops against Russia, while Germany dealt with France, this confusion forced the Austro-Hungarian Army to divide its forces between the Russian and Serbian fronts.

Serbian campaign

Austria invaded and fought the Serbian army at the Battle of Cer and Battle of Kolubara beginning on 12 August, over the next two weeks, Austrian attacks were thrown back with heavy losses, which marked the first major Allied victories of the war and dashed Austro-Hungarian hopes of a swift victory. As a result, Austria had to keep sizeable forces on the Serbian front, weakening its efforts against Russia.[52] Serbia's defeat of the Austro-Hungarian invasion of 1914 has been called one of the major upset victories of the twentieth century.[53]

German forces in Belgium and France

German soldiers in a railway goods wagon on the way to the front in 1914. Early in the war, all sides expected the conflict to be a short one.

At the outbreak of World War I, 80% of the German army was deployed as seven field armies in the west according to the plan Aufmarsch II West. However, they were then assigned to execute the retired deployment plan Aufmarsch I West, also known as the Schlieffen Plan, this would march German armies through northern Belgium and into France, in an attempt to encircle the French army and then breach the 'second defensive area' of the fortresses of Verdun and Paris and the Marne river.[11]

Aufmarsch I West was one of four deployment plans available to the German General Staff in 1914. Each plan favoured certain operations, but did not specify exactly how those operations were to be carried out, leaving the commanding officers to carry those out at their own initiative and with minimal oversight.[clarification needed]Aufmarsch I West, designed for a one-front war with France, had been retired once it became clear it was irrelevant to the wars Germany could expect to face; both Russia and Britain were expected to help France, and there was no possibility of Italian nor Austro-Hungarian troops being available for operations against France. But despite its unsuitability, and the availability of more sensible and decisive options, it retained a certain allure due to its offensive nature and the pessimism of pre-war thinking, which expected offensive operations to be short-lived, costly in casualties, and unlikely to be decisive. Accordingly, the Aufmarsch II West deployment was changed for the offensive of 1914, despite its unrealistic goals and the insufficient forces Germany had available for decisive success.[54] Moltke took Schlieffen's plan and modified the deployment of forces on the western front by reducing the right wing, the one to advance through Belgium, from 85% to 70%; in the end, the Schlieffen plan was so radically modified by Moltke, that it could be more properly called the Moltke Plan.[55]

The plan called for the right flank of the German advance to bypass the French armies concentrated on the Franco-German border, defeat the French forces closer to Luxembourg and Belgium and move south to Paris. Initially the Germans were successful, particularly in the Battle of the Frontiers (14–24 August). By 12 September, the French, with assistance from the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), halted the German advance east of Paris at the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September) and pushed the German forces back some 50 km (31 mi). The French offensive into southern Alsace, launched on 20 August with the Battle of Mulhouse, had limited success.

In the east, Russia invaded with two armies; in response, Germany rapidly moved the 8th Field Army from its previous role as reserve for the invasion of France to East Prussia by rail across the German Empire. This army, led by general Paul von Hindenburg, defeated Russia in a series of battles collectively known as the First Battle of Tannenberg (17 August – 2 September). While the Russian invasion failed, it caused the diversion of German troops to the east, allowing the Allied victory at the First Battle of the Marne, this meant Germany failed to achieve its objective of avoiding a long, two-front war. However, the German army had fought its way into a good defensive position inside France and effectively halved France's supply of coal, it had also killed or permanently crippled 230,000 more French and British troops than it itself had lost. Despite this, communications problems and questionable command decisions cost Germany the chance of a more decisive outcome.[56]

African campaigns

Some of the first clashes of the war involved British, French, and German colonial forces in Africa, on 6–7 August, French and British troops invaded the German protectorate of Togoland and Kamerun. On 10 August, German forces in South-West Africa attacked South Africa; sporadic and fierce fighting continued for the rest of the war. The German colonial forces in German East Africa, led by Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, fought a guerrilla warfare campaign during World War I and only surrendered two weeks after the armistice took effect in Europe.[60]

Indian support for the Allies

Germany attempted to use Indian nationalism and pan-Islamism to its advantage, instigating uprisings in India, and sending a mission that urged Afghanistan to join the war on the side of Central powers. However, contrary to British fears of a revolt in India, the outbreak of the war saw an unprecedented outpouring of loyalty and goodwill towards Britain.[61][62] Indian political leaders from the Indian National Congress and other groups were eager to support the British war effort, since they believed that strong support for the war effort would further the cause of Indian Home Rule.[citation needed] The Indian Army in fact outnumbered the British Army at the beginning of the war; about 1.3 million Indian soldiers and labourers served in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, while the central government and the princely states sent large supplies of food, money, and ammunition. In all, 140,000 men served on the Western Front and nearly 700,000 in the Middle East. Casualties of Indian soldiers totalled 47,746 killed and 65,126 wounded during World War I,[63] the suffering engendered by the war, as well as the failure of the British government to grant self-government to India after the end of hostilities, bred disillusionment and fuelled the campaign for full independence that would be led by Mohandas K. Gandhi and others.[64]

Western Front

Trench warfare begins

Military tactics developed before World War I failed to keep pace with advances in technology and had become obsolete, these advances had allowed the creation of strong defensive systems, which out-of-date military tactics could not break through for most of the war. Barbed wire was a significant hindrance to massed infantry advances, while artillery, vastly more lethal than in the 1870s, coupled with machine guns, made crossing open ground extremely difficult.[65] Commanders on both sides failed to develop tactics for breaching entrenched positions without heavy casualties; in time, however, technology began to produce new offensive weapons, such as gas warfare and the tank.[66]

Just after the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September 1914), Entente and German forces repeatedly attempted manoeuvring to the north in an effort to outflank each other: this series of manoeuvres became known as the "Race to the Sea". When these outflanking efforts failed, the opposing forces soon found themselves facing an uninterrupted line of entrenched positions from Lorraine to Belgium's coast.[11] Britain and France sought to take the offensive, while Germany defended the occupied territories. Consequently, German trenches were much better constructed than those of the enemy; Anglo-French trenches were intended only to be "temporary" before the allied forces broke through the German defences.[67]

Both sides tried to break the stalemate using scientific and technological advances, on 22 April 1915, at the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans (violating the Hague Convention) used chlorine gas for the first time on the Western Front. Several types of gas soon became widely used by both sides, and though it never proved a decisive, battle-winning weapon, poison gas became one of the most-feared and best-remembered horrors of the war.[68][69] Tanks were developed by Britain and France and were first used in combat by the British during the Battle of Flers–Courcelette (part of the Battle of the Somme) on 15 September 1916, with only partial success. However, their effectiveness would grow as the war progressed; the Allies built tanks in large numbers, whilst the Germans employed only a few of their own design, supplemented by captured Allied tanks.

Continuation of trench warfare

French 87th regiment near Verdun, 1916

Neither side proved able to deliver a decisive blow for the next two years. Throughout 1915–17, the British Empire and France suffered more casualties than Germany, because of both the strategic and tactical stances chosen by the sides. Strategically, while the Germans only mounted one major offensive, the Allies made several attempts to break through the German lines.

In February 1916 the Germans attacked the French defensive positions at Verdun. Lasting until December 1916, the battle saw initial German gains, before French counter-attacks returned matters to near their starting point. Casualties were greater for the French, but the Germans bled heavily as well, with anywhere from 700,000[70] to 975,000[71] casualties suffered between the two combatants. Verdun became a symbol of French determination and self-sacrifice.[72]

Soldiers making sure to do the most possible to avoid trench foot.

King George V (front left) and a group of officials inspect a British munitions factory in 1917

The Battle of the Somme was an Anglo-French offensive of July to November 1916, the opening of this offensive (1 July 1916) saw the British Army endure the bloodiest day in its history, suffering 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 dead, on the first day alone. The entire Somme offensive cost the British Army some 420,000 casualties, the French suffered another estimated 200,000 casualties and the Germans an estimated 500,000.[73]Gun fire wasn't the only factor taking lives, the diseases that emerged in the trenches were a major killer on both sides, the living conditions made it so that countless diseases and infections occurred. Trench foot, shell shock, blindness/burns from mustard gas, lice, trench fever, cooties (body lice) and the ‘Spanish Flu’[74]

Protracted action at Verdun throughout 1916,[75] combined with the bloodletting at the Somme, brought the exhausted French army to the brink of collapse. Futile attempts using frontal assault came at a high price for both the British and the French and led to the widespread French Army Mutinies, after the failure of the costly Nivelle Offensive of April–May 1917.[76] The concurrent British Battle of Arras was more limited in scope, and more successful, although ultimately of little strategic value.[77][78] A smaller part of the Arras offensive, the capture of Vimy Ridge by the Canadian Corps, became highly significant to that country: the idea that Canada's national identity was born out of the battle is an opinion widely held in military and general histories of Canada.[79][80]

The last large-scale offensive of this period was a British attack (with French support) at Passchendaele (July–November 1917), this offensive opened with great promise for the Allies, before bogging down in the October mud. Casualties, though disputed, were roughly equal, at some 200,000–400,000 per side.

These years of trench warfare in the West saw no major exchanges of territory and, as a result, are often thought of as static and unchanging. However, throughout this period, British, French, and German tactics constantly evolved to meet new battlefield challenges.

Naval war

At the start of the war, the German Empire had cruisers scattered across the globe, some of which were subsequently used to attack Allied merchant shipping, the British Royal Navy systematically hunted them down, though not without some embarrassment from its inability to protect Allied shipping. Before the beginning of the war, it was widely understood that Britain held the position of strongest, most influential navy in the world.[81][unreliable source?] The publishing of the book The Influence of Sea Power upon History by Alfred Thayer Mahan in 1890 was intended to encourage the United States to increase their naval power. Instead, this book made it to Germany and inspired its readers to try to over-power the British Royal Navy,[82] for example, the German detached light cruiser SMS Emden, part of the East Asia Squadron stationed at Qingdao, seized or destroyed 15 merchantmen, as well as sinking a Russian cruiser and a French destroyer. However, most of the German East-Asia squadron—consisting of the armoured cruisers SMS ScharnhorstandGneisenau, light cruisers Nürnberg and Leipzig and two transport ships—did not have orders to raid shipping and was instead underway to Germany when it met British warships. The German flotilla and Dresden sank two armoured cruisers at the Battle of Coronel, but was virtually destroyed at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December 1914, with only Dresden and a few auxiliaries escaping, but after the Battle of Más a Tierra these too had been destroyed or interned.[83]

Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, Britain began a naval blockade of Germany, the strategy proved effective, cutting off vital military and civilian supplies, although this blockade violated accepted international law codified by several international agreements of the past two centuries.[84] Britain mined international waters to prevent any ships from entering entire sections of ocean, causing danger to even neutral ships,[85] since there was limited response to this tactic of the British, Germany expected a similar response to its unrestricted submarine warfare.[86]

The Battle of Jutland (German: Skagerrakschlacht, or "Battle of the Skagerrak") developed into the largest naval battle of the war. It was the only full-scale clash of battleships during the war, and one of the largest in history, the Kaiserliche Marine's High Seas Fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, fought the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet, led by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. The engagement was a stand off, as the Germans were outmanoeuvred by the larger British fleet, but managed to escape and inflicted more damage to the British fleet than they received. Strategically, however, the British asserted their control of the sea, and the bulk of the German surface fleet remained confined to port for the duration of the war.[87]

U-155 exhibited near Tower Bridge in London, after the 1918 Armistice.

German U-boats attempted to cut the supply lines between North America and Britain,[88] the nature of submarine warfare meant that attacks often came without warning, giving the crews of the merchant ships little hope of survival.[88][89] The United States launched a protest, and Germany changed its rules of engagement, after the sinking of the passenger ship RMS Lusitania in 1915, Germany promised not to target passenger liners, while Britain armed its merchant ships, placing them beyond the protection of the "cruiser rules", which demanded warning and movement of crews to "a place of safety" (a standard that lifeboats did not meet).[90] Finally, in early 1917, Germany adopted a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, realising that the Americans would eventually enter the war.[88][91] Germany sought to strangle Allied sea lanes before the United States could transport a large army overseas, but after initial successes eventually failed to do so.[88]

The U-boat threat lessened in 1917, when merchant ships began travelling in convoys, escorted by destroyers, this tactic made it difficult for U-boats to find targets, which significantly lessened losses; after the hydrophone and depth charges were introduced, accompanying destroyers could attack a submerged submarine with some hope of success. Convoys slowed the flow of supplies, since ships had to wait as convoys were assembled, the solution to the delays was an extensive program of building new freighters. Troopships were too fast for the submarines and did not travel the North Atlantic in convoys,[92] the U-boats had sunk more than 5,000 Allied ships, at a cost of 199 submarines.[93] World War I also saw the first use of aircraft carriers in combat, with HMS Furious launching Sopwith Camels in a successful raid against the Zeppelin hangars at Tondern in July 1918, as well as blimps for antisubmarine patrol.[94]

Southern theatres

War in the Balkans

Austro-Hungarian troops executing captured Serbians, 1917. Serbia lost about 850,000 people during the war, a quarter of its pre-war population.[95]

Faced with Russia, Austria-Hungary could spare only one-third of its army to attack Serbia, after suffering heavy losses, the Austrians briefly occupied the Serbian capital, Belgrade. A Serbian counter-attack in the Battle of Kolubara succeeded in driving them from the country by the end of 1914, for the first ten months of 1915, Austria-Hungary used most of its military reserves to fight Italy. German and Austro-Hungarian diplomats, however, scored a coup by persuading Bulgaria to join the attack on Serbia,[96] the Austro-Hungarian provinces of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia provided troops for Austria-Hungary, in the fight with Serbia, Russia and Italy. Montenegro allied itself with Serbia.[97]

Bulgarian soldiers in a trench, preparing to fire against an incoming aeroplane.

Bulgaria declared war on Serbia, 12 October and joined in the attack by the Austro-Hungarian army under Mackensen's army of 250,000 that was already underway. Serbia was conquered in a little more than a month, as the Central Powers, now including Bulgaria, sent in 600,000 troops total, the Serbian army, fighting on two fronts and facing certain defeat, retreated into northern Albania. The Serbs suffered defeat in the Battle of Kosovo. Montenegro covered the Serbian retreat towards the Adriatic coast in the Battle of Mojkovac in 6–7 January 1916, but ultimately the Austrians also conquered Montenegro, the surviving Serbian soldiers were evacuated by ship to Greece.[98] After conquest, Serbia was divided between Austro-Hungary and Bulgaria.[99]

In late 1915, a Franco-British force landed at Salonica in Greece, to offer assistance and to pressure its government to declare war against the Central Powers. However, the pro-German King Constantine I dismissed the pro-Allied government of Eleftherios Venizelos before the Allied expeditionary force arrived,[100] the friction between the King of Greece and the Allies continued to accumulate with the National Schism, which effectively divided Greece between regions still loyal to the king and the new provisional government of Venizelos in Salonica. After intense negotiations and an armed confrontation in Athens between Allied and royalist forces (an incident known as Noemvriana), the King of Greece resigned and his second son Alexander took his place; Greece then officially joined the war on the side of the Allies.

In the beginning, the Macedonian Front was mostly static. French and Serbian forces retook limited areas of Macedonia by recapturing Bitola on 19 November 1916 following the costly Monastir Offensive, which brought stabilisation of the front.[101]

Serbian and French troops finally made a breakthrough in September 1918, after most of the German and Austro-Hungarian troops had been withdrawn, the Bulgarians were defeated at the Battle of Dobro Pole and by 25 September 1918 British and French troops had crossed the border into Bulgaria proper as the Bulgarian army collapsed. Bulgaria capitulated four days later, on 29 September 1918,[102] the German high command responded by despatching troops to hold the line, but these forces were far too weak to reestablish a front.[103]

The disappearance of the Macedonian Front meant that the road to Budapest and Vienna was now opened to Allied forces. Hindenburg and Ludendorff concluded that the strategic and operational balance had now shifted decidedly against the Central Powers and, a day after the Bulgarian collapse, insisted on an immediate peace settlement.[104]

The British and French opened overseas fronts with the Gallipoli (1915) and Mesopotamian campaigns (1914); in Gallipoli, the Ottoman Empire successfully repelled the British, French, and Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs). In Mesopotamia, by contrast, after the defeat of the British defenders in the Siege of Kut by the Ottomans (1915–16), British Imperial forces reorganised and captured Baghdad in March 1917. The British were aided in Mesopotamia by local Arab and Assyrian tribesmen, while the Ottomans employed local Kurdish and Turcoman tribes.[108]

Russian armies generally saw success in the Caucasus. Enver Pasha, supreme commander of the Ottoman armed forces, was ambitious and dreamed of re-conquering central Asia and areas that had been lost to Russia previously. He was, however, a poor commander,[110] he launched an offensive against the Russians in the Caucasus in December 1914 with 100,000 troops, insisting on a frontal attack against mountainous Russian positions in winter. He lost 86% of his force at the Battle of Sarikamish.[111]

Kaiser Wilhelm II inspecting Turkish troops of the 15th Corps in East Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now Poland). Prince Leopold of Bavaria, the Supreme Commander of the German Army on the Eastern Front, is second from the left.

The Ottoman Empire, with German support, invaded Persia (modern Iran) in December 1914 in an effort to cut off British and Russian access to petroleum reservoirs around Baku near the Caspian Sea.[112] Persia, ostensibly neutral, had long been under the spheres of British and Russian influence, the Ottomans and Germans were aided by Kurdish and Azeri forces, together with a large number of major Iranian tribes, such as the Qashqai, Tangistanis, Luristanis, and Khamseh, while the Russians and British had the support of Armenian and Assyrian forces. The Persian Campaign was to last until 1918 and end in failure for the Ottomans and their allies, however the Russian withdrawal from the war in 1917 led to Armenian and Assyrian forces, who had hitherto inflicted a series of defeats upon the forces of the Ottomans and their allies, being cut off from supply lines, outnumbered, outgunned and isolated, forcing them to fight and flee towards British lines in northern Mesopotamia.[113]

General Yudenich, the Russian commander from 1915 to 1916, drove the Turks out of most of the southern Caucasus with a string of victories;[111] in 1917, Russian Grand Duke Nicholas assumed command of the Caucasus front. Nicholas planned a railway from Russian Georgia to the conquered territories, so that fresh supplies could be brought up for a new offensive in 1917. However, in March 1917 (February in the pre-revolutionary Russian calendar), the Czar abdicated in the course of the February Revolution and the Russian Caucasus Army began to fall apart.

The Senussi tribe, along the border of Italian Libya and British Egypt, incited and armed by the Turks, waged a small-scale guerrilla war against Allied troops, the British were forced to dispatch 12,000 troops to oppose them in the Senussi Campaign. Their rebellion was finally crushed in mid-1916.[115]

Total Allied casualties on the Ottoman fronts amounted 650,000 men. Total Ottoman casualties were 725,000 (325,000 dead and 400,000 wounded).[116]

Italian participation

Italy had been allied with the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires since 1882 as part of the Triple Alliance. However, the nation had its own designs on Austrian territory in Trentino, the Austrian Littoral, Fiume (Rijeka) and Dalmatia. Rome had a secret 1902 pact with France, effectively nullifying its part in the Triple Alliance,[117] at the start of hostilities, Italy refused to commit troops, arguing that the Triple Alliance was defensive and that Austria-Hungary was an aggressor. The Austro-Hungarian government began negotiations to secure Italian neutrality, offering the French colony of Tunisia in return, the Allies made a counter-offer in which Italy would receive the Southern Tyrol, Austrian Littoral and territory on the Dalmatian coast after the defeat of Austria-Hungary. This was formalised by the Treaty of London. Further encouraged by the Allied invasion of Turkey in April 1915, Italy joined the Triple Entente and declared war on Austria-Hungary on 23 May. Fifteen months later, Italy declared war on Germany.[118]

Austro-Hungarian troops, Tyrol.

The Italians had numerical superiority but this advantage was lost, not only because of the difficult terrain in which the fighting took place, but also because of the strategies and tactics employed.[119]Field MarshalLuigi Cadorna, a staunch proponent of the frontal assault, had dreams of breaking into the Slovenian plateau, taking Ljubljana and threatening Vienna.

On the Trentino front, the Austro-Hungarians took advantage of the mountainous terrain, which favoured the defender, after an initial strategic retreat, the front remained largely unchanged, while Austrian Kaiserschützen and Standschützen engaged Italian Alpini in bitter hand-to-hand combat throughout the summer. The Austro-Hungarians counterattacked in the Altopiano of Asiago, towards Verona and Padua, in the spring of 1916 (Strafexpedition), but made little progress.[120]

Beginning in 1915, the Italians under Cadorna mounted eleven offensives on the Isonzo front along the Isonzo (Soča) River, northeast of Trieste. All eleven offensives were repelled by the Austro-Hungarians, who held the higher ground; in the summer of 1916, after the Battle of Doberdò, the Italians captured the town of Gorizia. After this minor victory, the front remained static for over a year, despite several Italian offensives, centred on the Banjšice and Karst Plateau east of Gorizia.

Depiction of the Battle of Doberdò, fought in August 1916 between the Italian and the Austro-Hungarian armies

The Central Powers launched a crushing offensive on 26 October 1917, spearheaded by the Germans, they achieved a victory at Caporetto (Kobarid). The Italian Army was routed and retreated more than 100 kilometres (62 mi) to reorganise, stabilising the front at the Piave River. Since the Italian Army had suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Caporetto, the Italian Government called to arms the so-called '99 Boys (Ragazzi del '99): that is, all males born 1899 and prior, and so were 18 years old or older. In 1918, the Austro-Hungarians failed to break through in a series of battles on the Piave and were finally decisively defeated in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto in October of that year, on 1 November, the Italian Navy destroyed much of the Austro-Hungarian fleet stationed in Pula, preventing it from being handed over to the new State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. On 3 November, the Italians invaded Trieste from the sea, on the same day, the Armistice of Villa Giusti was signed. By mid-November 1918, the Italian military occupied the entire former Austrian Littoral and had seized control of the portion of Dalmatia that had been guaranteed to Italy by the London Pact.[121] By the end of hostilities in November 1918,[122] Admiral Enrico Millo declared himself Italy's Governor of Dalmatia.[122] Austria-Hungary surrendered on 11 November 1918.[123][124]

Romanian participation

Romania had been allied with the Central Powers since 1882. When the war began, however, it declared its neutrality, arguing that because Austria-Hungary had itself declared war on Serbia, Romania was under no obligation to join the war. When the Entente Powers promised Romania Transylvania and Banat, large territories of eastern Hungary, in exchange for Romania's declaring war on the Central Powers, the Romanian government renounced its neutrality, on 27 August 1916, the Romanian Army launched an attack against Austria-Hungary, with limited Russian support. The Romanian offensive was initially successful, against the Austro-Hungarian troops in Transylvania, but a counterattack by the forces of the Central Powers drove them back,[125] as a result of the Battle of Bucharest, the Central Powers occupied Bucharest on 6 December 1916. Fighting in Moldova continued in 1917, resulting in a costly stalemate for the Central Powers.[126][127] Russian withdrawal from the war in late 1917 as a result of the October Revolution meant that Romania was forced to sign an armistice with the Central Powers on 9 December 1917.

In January 1918, Romanian forces established control over Bessarabia as the Russian Army abandoned the province, although a treaty was signed by the Romanian and the Bolshevik Russian governments following talks between 5 and 9 March 1918 on the withdrawal of Romanian forces from Bessarabia within two months, on 27 March 1918 Romania attached Bessarabia to its territory, formally based on a resolution passed by the local assembly of that territory on its unification with Romania.[128]

Romania officially made peace with the Central Powers by signing the Treaty of Bucharest on 7 May 1918. Under that treaty, Romania was obliged to end the war with the Central Powers and make small territorial concessions to Austria-Hungary, ceding control of some passes in the Carpathian Mountains, and to grant oil concessions to Germany; in exchange, the Central Powers recognised the sovereignty of Romania over Bessarabia. The treaty was renounced in October 1918 by the Alexandru Marghiloman government, and Romania nominally re-entered the war on 10 November 1918, the next day, the Treaty of Bucharest was nullified by the terms of the Armistice of Compiègne.[129][130] Total Romanian deaths from 1914 to 1918, military and civilian, within contemporary borders, were estimated at 748,000.[131]

Eastern Front

Heir presumptive Karl visiting the fortress of Przemyśl after the first siege. The Russian Siege of Przemyśl was the longest siege of the war.

Initial actions

While the Western Front had reached stalemate, the war continued in East Europe.[132] Initial Russian plans called for simultaneous invasions of Austrian Galicia and East Prussia, although Russia's initial advance into Galicia was largely successful, it was driven back from East Prussia by Hindenburg and Ludendorff at the battles of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes in August and September 1914.[133][134] Russia's less developed industrial base and ineffective military leadership were instrumental in the events that unfolded. By the spring of 1915, the Russians had retreated to Galicia, and, in May, the Central Powers achieved a remarkable breakthrough on Poland's southern frontiers,[135] on 5 August, they captured Warsaw and forced the Russians to withdraw from Poland.

Russian Revolution

Allied troops parade through Vladivostok in armed support of the anti-communist White Army, September 1918

Despite Russia's success with the June 1916 Brusilov Offensive in eastern Galicia,[136] dissatisfaction with the Russian government's conduct of the war grew, the offensive's success was undermined by the reluctance of other generals to commit their forces to support the victory. Allied and Russian forces were revived only temporarily by Romania's entry into the war on 27 August. German forces came to the aid of embattled Austro-Hungarian units in Transylvania while a German-Bulgarian force attacked from the south, and Bucharest was retaken by the Central Powers on 6 December. Meanwhile, unrest grew in Russia, as the Tsar remained at the front. Empress Alexandra's increasingly incompetent rule drew protests and resulted in the murder of her favourite, Rasputin, at the end of 1916.

In March 1917, demonstrations in Petrograd culminated in the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II and the appointment of a weak Provisional Government, which shared power with the Petrograd Soviet socialists. This arrangement led to confusion and chaos both at the front and at home, the army became increasingly ineffective.[137]

Following the Tsar's abdication, Vladimir Lenin was ushered by train from Switzerland into Russia 16 April 1917, he was financed by Jacob Schiff.[138] Discontent and the weaknesses of the Provisional Government led to a rise in the popularity of the Bolshevik Party, led by Lenin, which demanded an immediate end to the war, the Revolution of November was followed in December by an armistice and negotiations with Germany. At first, the Bolsheviks refused the German terms, but when German troops began marching across Ukraine unopposed, the new government acceded to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March 1918, the treaty ceded vast territories, including Finland, the Baltic provinces, parts of Poland and Ukraine to the Central Powers.[139][citation not found] Despite this enormous apparent German success, the manpower required for German occupation of former Russian territory may have contributed to the failure of the Spring Offensive and secured relatively little food or other materiel for the Central Powers war effort.

Czechoslovak Legion

The Czechoslovak Legion fought with the Entente; its goal was to win support for the independence of Czechoslovakia. The Legion in Russia was established in September 1914, in December 1917 in France (including volunteers from America) and in April 1918 in Italy. Czechoslovak Legion troops defeated the Austro-Hungarian army at the Ukrainian village of Zborov, in July 1917, after this success, the number of Czechoslovak legionaries increased, as well as Czechoslovak military power. In the Battle of Bakhmach, the Legion defeated the Germans and forced them to make a truce.

In Russia, they were heavily involved in the Russian Civil War, siding with the Whites against the Bolsheviks, at times controlling most of the Trans-Siberian railway and conquering all the major cities of Siberia. The presence of the Czechoslovak Legion near Yekaterinburg appears to have been one of the motivations for the Bolshevik execution of the Tsar and his family in July 1918. Legionaries arrived less than a week afterwards and captured the city, because Russia's European ports were not safe, the corps was evacuated by a long detour via the port of Vladivostok. The last transport was the American ship Heffron in September 1920.

Central Powers peace overtures

In December 1916, after ten brutal months of the Battle of Verdun and a successful offensive against Romania, the Germans attempted to negotiate a peace with the Allies. Soon after, the US President, Woodrow Wilson, attempted to intervene as a peacemaker, asking in a note for both sides to state their demands. Lloyd George's War Cabinet considered the German offer to be a ploy to create divisions amongst the Allies. After initial outrage and much deliberation, they took Wilson's note as a separate effort, signalling that the United States was on the verge of entering the war against Germany following the "submarine outrages". While the Allies debated a response to Wilson's offer, the Germans chose to rebuff it in favour of "a direct exchange of views". Learning of the German response, the Allied governments were free to make clear demands in their response of 14 January, they sought restoration of damages, the evacuation of occupied territories, reparations for France, Russia and Romania, and a recognition of the principle of nationalities.[141] This included the liberation of Italians, Slavs, Romanians, Czecho-Slovaks, and the creation of a "free and united Poland",[141] on the question of security, the Allies sought guarantees that would prevent or limit future wars, complete with sanctions, as a condition of any peace settlement.[142] The negotiations failed and the Entente powers rejected the German offer on the grounds that Germany had not put forward any specific proposals.

1917–1918

Developments in 1917

Events of 1917 proved decisive in ending the war, although their effects were not fully felt until 1918.

The British naval blockade began to have a serious impact on Germany; in response, in February 1917, the German General Staff convinced ChancellorTheobald von Bethmann-Hollweg to declare unrestricted submarine warfare, with the goal of starving Britain out of the war. German planners estimated that unrestricted submarine warfare would cost Britain a monthly shipping loss of 600,000 tons, the General Staff acknowledged that the policy would almost certainly bring the United States into the conflict, but calculated that British shipping losses would be so high that they would be forced to sue for peace after 5 to 6 months, before American intervention could make an impact. In reality, tonnage sunk rose above 500,000 tons per month from February to July. It peaked at 860,000 tons in April. After July, the newly re-introduced convoy system became effective in reducing the U-boat threat. Britain was safe from starvation, while German industrial output fell and the United States joined the war far earlier than Germany had anticipated.

On 3 May 1917, during the Nivelle Offensive, the French 2nd Colonial Division, veterans of the Battle of Verdun, refused orders, arriving drunk and without their weapons, their officers lacked the means to punish an entire division, and harsh measures were not immediately implemented. The French Army Mutinies eventually spread to a further 54 French divisions and saw 20,000 men desert. However, appeals to patriotism and duty, as well as mass arrests and trials, encouraged the soldiers to return to defend their trenches, although the French soldiers refused to participate in further offensive action.[143]Robert Nivelle was removed from command by 15 May, replaced by General Philippe Pétain, who suspended bloody large-scale attacks.

German film crew recording the action.

The victory of the Central Powers at the Battle of Caporetto led the Allies to convene the Rapallo Conference at which they formed the Supreme War Council to co-ordinate planning. Previously, British and French armies had operated under separate commands.

In December, the Central Powers signed an armistice with Russia, thus freeing large numbers of German troops for use in the west, with German reinforcements and new American troops pouring in, the outcome was to be decided on the Western Front. The Central Powers knew that they could not win a protracted war, but they held high hopes for success based on a final quick offensive. Furthermore, both sides became increasingly fearful of social unrest and revolution in Europe. Thus, both sides urgently sought a decisive victory.[144]

In 1917, Emperor Charles I of Austria secretly attempted separate peace negotiations with Clemenceau, through his wife's brother Sixtus in Belgium as an intermediary, without the knowledge of Germany. Italy opposed the proposals. When the negotiations failed, his attempt was revealed to Germany, resulting in a diplomatic catastrophe.[145][146]

In early 1918, the front line was extended and the Jordan Valley was occupied, following the First Transjordan and the Second Transjordan attacks by British Empire forces in March and April 1918.[155] In March, most of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force's British infantry and Yeomanry cavalry were sent to the Western Front as a consequence of the Spring Offensive, they were replaced by Indian Army units. During several months of reorganisation and training of the summer, a number of attacks were carried out on sections of the Ottoman front line, these pushed the front line north to more advantageous positions for the Entente in preparation for an attack and to acclimatise the newly arrived Indian Army infantry. It was not until the middle of September that the integrated force was ready for large-scale operations.

Entry of the United States

President Wilson before Congress, announcing the break in official relations with Germany on 3 February 1917

At the outbreak of the war, the United States pursued a policy of non-intervention, avoiding conflict while trying to broker a peace. When the German U-boat U-20sank the British liner RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915 with 128 Americans among the dead, President Woodrow Wilson insisted that America is "too proud to fight" but demanded an end to attacks on passenger ships. Germany complied. Wilson unsuccessfully tried to mediate a settlement. However, he also repeatedly warned that the United States would not tolerate unrestricted submarine warfare, in violation of international law. Former president Theodore Roosevelt denounced German acts as "piracy".[157] Wilson was narrowly re-elected in 1916 after campaigning with the slogan "he kept us out of war".[158][159][160]

In January 1917, Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare, realising it would mean American entry, the German Foreign Minister, in the Zimmermann Telegram, invited Mexico to join the war as Germany's ally against the United States. In return, the Germans would finance Mexico's war and help it recover the territories of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona,[161] the United Kingdom intercepted the message and presented it to the US embassy in the UK From there it made its way to President Wilson who released the Zimmermann note to the public, and Americans saw it as casus belli. Wilson called on anti-war elements to end all wars, by winning this one and eliminating militarism from the globe, he argued that the war was so important that the US had to have a voice in the peace conference.[162] After the sinking of seven US merchant ships by submarines and the publication of the Zimmermann telegram, Wilson called for war on Germany on 2 April 1917,[163] which the US Congressdeclared 4 days later.

The United States was never formally a member of the Allies but became a self-styled "Associated Power", the United States had a small army, but, after the passage of the Selective Service Act, it drafted 2.8 million men,[164] and, by summer 1918, was sending 10,000 fresh soldiers to France every day. In 1917, the US Congress granted US citizenship to Puerto Ricans to allow them to be drafted to participate in World War I, as part of the Jones–Shafroth Act. German General Staff assumptions that it would be able to defeat the British and French forces before American troops reinforced them were proven incorrect.[165]

German Spring Offensive of 1918

French soldiers under General Gouraud, with machine guns amongst the ruins of a cathedral near the Marne, 1918.

Ludendorff drew up plans (codenamedOperation Michael) for the 1918 offensive on the Western Front, the Spring Offensive sought to divide the British and French forces with a series of feints and advances. The German leadership hoped to end the war before significant US forces arrived, the operation commenced on 21 March 1918, with an attack on British forces near Saint-Quentin. German forces achieved an unprecedented advance of 60 kilometres (37 mi).[168]

British and French trenches were penetrated using novel infiltration tactics, also named Hutier tactics, after General Oskar von Hutier, by specially trained units called stormtroopers. Previously, attacks had been characterised by long artillery bombardments and massed assaults. However, in the Spring Offensive of 1918, Ludendorff used artillery only briefly and infiltrated small groups of infantry at weak points, they attacked command and logistics areas and bypassed points of serious resistance. More heavily armed infantry then destroyed these isolated positions, this German success relied greatly on the element of surprise.[169][citation not found]

The front moved to within 120 kilometres (75 mi) of Paris. Three heavy Krupprailway guns fired 183 shells on the capital, causing many Parisians to flee. The initial offensive was so successful that Kaiser Wilhelm II declared 24 March a national holiday. Many Germans thought victory was near, after heavy fighting, however, the offensive was halted. Lacking tanks or motorised artillery, the Germans were unable to consolidate their gains, the problems of re-supply were also exacerbated by increasing distances that now stretched over terrain that was shell-torn and often impassable to traffic.[170]

General Foch pressed to use the arriving American troops as individual replacements, whereas Pershing sought to field American units as an independent force. These units were assigned to the depleted French and British Empire commands on 28 March. A Supreme War Council of Allied forces was created at the Doullens Conference on 5 November 1917. General Foch was appointed as supreme commander of the Allied forces. Haig, Petain, and Pershing retained tactical control of their respective armies; Foch assumed a co-ordinating rather than a directing role, and the British, French, and US commands operated largely independently.[171]

By 20 July, the Germans had retreated across the Marne to their starting lines,[172] having achieved little, and the German Army never regained the initiative. German casualties between March and April 1918 were 270,000, including many highly trained storm troopers.

Meanwhile, Germany was falling apart at home. Anti-war marches became frequent and morale in the army fell. Industrial output was half the 1913 levels.

Hundred Days Offensive

The Allied counteroffensive, known as the Hundred Days Offensive, began on 8 August 1918, with the Battle of Amiens, the battle involved over 400 tanks and 120,000 British, Dominion, and French troops, and by the end of its first day a gap 24 kilometres (15 mi) long had been created in the German lines. The defenders displayed a marked collapse in morale, causing Ludendorff to refer to this day as the "Black Day of the German army".[175][176][177] After an advance as far as 23 kilometres (14 mi), German resistance stiffened, and the battle was concluded on 12 August.

Rather than continuing the Amiens battle past the point of initial success, as had been done so many times in the past, the Allies shifted attention elsewhere. Allied leaders had now realised that to continue an attack after resistance had hardened was a waste of lives, and it was better to turn a line than to try to roll over it, they began to undertake attacks in quick order to take advantage of successful advances on the flanks, then broke them off when each attack lost its initial impetus.[178]

British and Dominion forces launched the next phase of the campaign with the Battle of Albert on 21 August,[179] the assault was widened by French[180] and then further British forces in the following days. During the last week of August the Allied pressure along a 110-kilometre (68 mi) front against the enemy was heavy and unrelenting. From German accounts, "Each day was spent in bloody fighting against an ever and again on-storming enemy, and nights passed without sleep in retirements to new lines."[178]

Faced with these advances, on 2 September the German Supreme Army Command issued orders to withdraw to the Hindenburg Line in the south, this ceded without a fight the salient seized the previous April.[181] According to Ludendorff "We had to admit the necessity ... to withdraw the entire front from the Scarpe to the Vesle.[182]

September saw the Allies advance to the Hindenburg Line in the north and centre, the Germans continued to fight strong rear-guard actions and launched numerous counterattacks on lost positions, but only a few succeeded, and those only temporarily. Contested towns, villages, heights, and trenches in the screening positions and outposts of the Hindenburg Line continued to fall to the Allies, with the BEF alone taking 30,441 prisoners in the last week of September. On 24 September an assault by both the British and French came within 3 kilometres (2 mi) of St. Quentin,[180] the Germans had now retreated to positions along or behind the Hindenburg Line.

In nearly four weeks of fighting beginning on 8 August, over 100,000 German prisoners were taken, as of "The Black Day of the German Army", the German High Command realised that the war was lost and made attempts to reach a satisfactory end. The day after that battle, Ludendorff said: "We cannot win the war any more, but we must not lose it either." On 11 August he offered his resignation to the Kaiser, who refused it, replying, "I see that we must strike a balance. We have nearly reached the limit of our powers of resistance, the war must be ended." On 13 August, at Spa, Hindenburg, Ludendorff, the Chancellor, and Foreign Minister Hintz agreed that the war could not be ended militarily and, on the following day, the German Crown Council decided that victory in the field was now most improbable. Austria and Hungary warned that they could only continue the war until December, and Ludendorff recommended immediate peace negotiations. Prince Rupprecht warned Prince Max of Baden: "Our military situation has deteriorated so rapidly that I no longer believe we can hold out over the winter; it is even possible that a catastrophe will come earlier." On 10 September Hindenburg urged peace moves to Emperor Charles of Austria, and Germany appealed to the Netherlands for mediation. On 14 September Austria sent a note to all belligerents and neutrals suggesting a meeting for peace talks on neutral soil, and on 15 September Germany made a peace offer to Belgium. Both peace offers were rejected, and on 24 September Supreme Army Command informed the leaders in Berlin that armistice talks were inevitable.[180]

The final assault on the Hindenburg Line began with the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, launched by French and American troops on 26 September, the following week, co-operating French and American units broke through in Champagne at the Battle of Blanc Mont Ridge, forcing the Germans off the commanding heights, and closing towards the Belgian frontier.[183] On 8 October the line was pierced again by British and Dominion troops at the Battle of Cambrai,[184] the German army had to shorten its front and use the Dutch frontier as an anchor to fight rear-guard actions as it fell back towards Germany.

When Bulgaria signed a separate armistice on 29 September, Ludendorff, having been under great stress for months, suffered something similar to a breakdown, it was evident that Germany could no longer mount a successful defence.[185][186]

News of Germany's impending military defeat spread throughout the German armed forces, the threat of mutiny was rife. Admiral Reinhard Scheer and Ludendorff decided to launch a last attempt to restore the "valour" of the German Navy. Knowing the government of Prince Maximilian of Baden would veto any such action, Ludendorff decided not to inform him. Nonetheless, word of the impending assault reached sailors at Kiel. Many, refusing to be part of a naval offensive, which they believed to be suicidal, rebelled and were arrested. Ludendorff took the blame; the Kaiser dismissed him on 26 October. The collapse of the Balkans meant that Germany was about to lose its main supplies of oil and food, its reserves had been used up, even as US troops kept arriving at the rate of 10,000 per day.[187] The Americans supplied more than 80% of Allied oil during the war, and there was no shortage.[188]

With the military faltering and with widespread loss of confidence in the Kaiser, Germany moved towards surrender. Prince Maximilian of Baden took charge of a new government as Chancellor of Germany to negotiate with the Allies. Negotiations with President Wilson began immediately, in the hope that he would offer better terms than the British and French. Wilson demanded a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary control over the German military.[189] There was no resistance when the Social DemocratPhilipp Scheidemann on 9 November declared Germany to be a republic, the Kaiser, kings and other hereditary rulers all were removed from power and Wilhelm fled to exile in the Netherlands. Imperial Germany was dead; a new Germany had been born as the Weimar Republic.[190]

Armistices and capitulations

The collapse of the Central Powers came swiftly. Bulgaria was the first to sign an armistice, on 29 September 1918 at Saloniki,[191] on 30 October, the Ottoman Empire capitulated, signing the Armistice of Mudros.[191]

On 24 October, the Italians began a push that rapidly recovered territory lost after the Battle of Caporetto, this culminated in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, which marked the end of the Austro-Hungarian Army as an effective fighting force. The offensive also triggered the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, during the last week of October, declarations of independence were made in Budapest, Prague, and Zagreb. On 29 October, the imperial authorities asked Italy for an armistice, but the Italians continued advancing, reaching Trento, Udine, and Trieste, on 3 November, Austria-Hungary sent a flag of truce to ask for an armistice (Armistice of Villa Giusti). The terms, arranged by telegraph with the Allied Authorities in Paris, were communicated to the Austrian commander and accepted, the Armistice with Austria was signed in the Villa Giusti, near Padua, on 3 November. Austria and Hungary signed separate armistices following the overthrow of the Habsburg Monarchy; in the following days the Italian Army occupied Innsbruck and all Tyrol with 20 to 22,000 soldiers.[192]

Ferdinand Foch, second from right, pictured outside the carriage in Compiègne after agreeing to the armistice that ended the war there. The carriage was later chosen by Nazi Germany as the symbolic setting of Pétain's June 1940 armistice.[193]

On 11 November, at 5:00 am, an armistice with Germany was signed in a railroad carriage at Compiègne, at 11 am on 11 November 1918—"the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month"—a ceasefire came into effect. During the six hours between the signing of the armistice and its taking effect, opposing armies on the Western Front began to withdraw from their positions, but fighting continued along many areas of the front, as commanders wanted to capture territory before the war ended.

The occupation of the Rhineland took place following the Armistice, the occupying armies consisted of American, Belgian, British and French forces.

In November 1918, the Allies had ample supplies of men and materiel to invade Germany. Yet at the time of the armistice, no Allied force had crossed the German frontier; the Western Front was still some 720 kilometres (450 mi) from Berlin; and the Kaiser's armies had retreated from the battlefield in good order. These factors enabled Hindenburg and other senior German leaders to spread the story that their armies had not really been defeated, this resulted in the stab-in-the-back legend,[194][195] which attributed Germany's defeat not to its inability to continue fighting (even though up to a million soldiers were suffering from the 1918 flu pandemic and unfit to fight), but to the public's failure to respond to its "patriotic calling" and the supposed intentional sabotage of the war effort, particularly by Jews, Socialists, and Bolsheviks.

The Allies had much more potential wealth they could spend on the war. One estimate (using 1913 US dollars) is that the Allies spent $58 billion on the war and the Central Powers only $25 billion, among the Allies, the UK spent $21 billion and the US $17 billion; among the Central Powers Germany spent $20 billion.[196]

Aftermath

The French military cemetery at the Douaumont ossuary, which contains the remains of more than 130,000 unknown soldiers

In the aftermath of the war, four empires disappeared: the German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Russian. Numerous nations regained their former independence, and new ones were created. Four dynasties, together with their ancillary aristocracies, fell as a result of the war: the Romanovs, the Hohenzollerns, the Habsburgs, and the Ottomans. Belgium and Serbia were badly damaged, as was France, with 1.4 million soldiers dead,[197] not counting other casualties. Germany and Russia were similarly affected.[198]

After the Treaty of Versailles, treaties with Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire were signed. However, the negotiation of the latter treaty with the Ottoman Empire was followed by strife, and a final peace treaty between the Allied Powers and the country that would shortly become the Republic of Turkey was not signed until 24 July 1923, at Lausanne.

Some war memorials date the end of the war as being when the Versailles Treaty was signed in 1919, which was when many of the troops serving abroad finally returned home; by contrast, most commemorations of the war's end concentrate on the armistice of 11 November 1918. Legally, the formal peace treaties were not complete until the last, the Treaty of Lausanne, was signed. Under its terms, the Allied forces left Constantinople on 23 August 1923.

The Central Powers had to acknowledge responsibility for "all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by" their aggression; in the Treaty of Versailles, this statement was Article 231. This article became known as the War Guilt clause as the majority of Germans felt humiliated and resentful.[209] Overall the Germans felt they had been unjustly dealt with by what they called the "diktat of Versailles". German historian Hagen Schulze said the Treaty placed Germany "under legal sanctions, deprived of military power, economically ruined, and politically humiliated."[210] Belgian historian Laurence Van Ypersele emphasises the central role played by memory of the war and the Versailles Treaty in German politics in the 1920s and 1930s:

Active denial of war guilt in Germany and German resentment at both reparations and continued Allied occupation of the Rhineland made widespread revision of the meaning and memory of the war problematic, the legend of the "stab in the back" and the wish to revise the "Versailles diktat", and the belief in an international threat aimed at the elimination of the German nation persisted at the heart of German politics. Even a man of peace such as [Gustav] Stresemann publicly rejected German guilt, as for the Nazis, they waved the banners of domestic treason and international conspiracy in an attempt to galvanize the German nation into a spirit of revenge. Like a Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany sought to redirect the memory of the war to the benefit of its own policies.[211]

Meanwhile, new nations liberated from German rule viewed the treaty as recognition of wrongs committed against small nations by much larger aggressive neighbours,[212] the Peace Conference required all the defeated powers to pay reparations for all the damage done to civilians. However, owing to economic difficulties and Germany being the only defeated power with an intact economy, the burden fell largely on Germany.

Austria-Hungary was partitioned into several successor states, including Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, largely but not entirely along ethnic lines. Transylvania was shifted from Hungary to Greater Romania, the details were contained in the Treaty of Saint-Germain and the Treaty of Trianon. As a result of the Treaty of Trianon, 3.3 million Hungarians came under foreign rule. Although the Hungarians made up 54% of the population of the pre-war Kingdom of Hungary, only 32% of its territory was left to Hungary. Between 1920 and 1924, 354,000 Hungarians fled former Hungarian territories attached to Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.[213]

The Russian Empire, which had withdrawn from the war in 1917 after the October Revolution, lost much of its western frontier as the newly independent nations of Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland were carved from it. Romania took control of Bessarabia in April 1918.[214]

The Ottoman Empire disintegrated, with much of its Levant territory awarded to various Allied powers as protectorates, the Turkish core in Anatolia was reorganised as the Republic of Turkey. The Ottoman Empire was to be partitioned by the Treaty of Sèvres of 1920, this treaty was never ratified by the Sultan and was rejected by the Turkish National Movement, leading to the victorious Turkish War of Independence and the much less stringent 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.

In the British Empire, the war unleashed new forms of nationalism; in Australia and New Zealand the Battle of Gallipoli became known as those nations' "Baptism of Fire". It was the first major war in which the newly established countries fought, and it was one of the first times that Australian troops fought as Australians, not just subjects of the British Crown. Anzac Day, commemorating the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, celebrates this defining moment.[218][219]

After the Battle of Vimy Ridge, where the Canadian divisions fought together for the first time as a single corps, Canadians began to refer to their country as a nation "forged from fire".[220] Having succeeded on the same battleground where the "mother countries" had previously faltered, they were for the first time respected internationally for their own accomplishments. Canada entered the war as a Dominion of the British Empire and remained so, although it emerged with a greater measure of independence.[221][222] When Britain declared war in 1914, the dominions were automatically at war; at the conclusion, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa were individual signatories of the Treaty of Versailles.[223]

The establishment of the modern state of Israel and the roots of the continuing Israeli–Palestinian conflict are partially found in the unstable power dynamics of the Middle East that resulted from World War I,[224] before the end of the war, the Ottoman Empire had maintained a modest level of peace and stability throughout the Middle East.[225] With the fall of the Ottoman government, power vacuums developed and conflicting claims to land and nationhood began to emerge,[226] the political boundaries drawn by the victors of World War I were quickly imposed, sometimes after only cursory consultation with the local population. These continue to be problematic in the 21st-century struggles for national identity.[227][228] While the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I was pivotal in contributing to the modern political situation of the Middle East, including the Arab-Israeli conflict,[229][230][231] the end of Ottoman rule also spawned lesser known disputes over water and other natural resources.[232]

Health effects

The war had profound consequences on the health of soldiers. Of the 60 million European military personnel who were mobilised from 1914 to 1918, 8 million were killed, 7 million were permanently disabled, and 15 million were seriously injured. Germany lost 15.1% of its active male population, Austria-Hungary lost 17.1%, and France lost 10.5%.[233] In Germany, civilian deaths were 474,000 higher than in peacetime, due in large part to food shortages and malnutrition that weakened resistance to disease.[234] By the end of the war, starvation caused by famine had killed approximately 100,000 people in Lebanon.[235] Between 5 and 10 million people died in the Russian famine of 1921.[236] By 1922, there were between 4.5 million and 7 million homeless children in Russia as a result of nearly a decade of devastation from World War I, the Russian Civil War, and the subsequent famine of 1920–1922.[237] Numerous anti-Soviet Russians fled the country after the Revolution; by the 1930s, the northern Chinese city of Harbin had 100,000 Russians.[238] Thousands more emigrated to France, England, and the United States.

The Australian prime minister, Billy Hughes, wrote to the British prime minister, Lloyd George, "You have assured us that you cannot get better terms. I much regret it, and hope even now that some way may be found of securing agreement for demanding reparation commensurate with the tremendous sacrifices made by the British Empire and her Allies." Australia received £5,571,720 war reparations, but the direct cost of the war to Australia had been £376,993,052, and, by the mid-1930s, repatriation pensions, war gratuities, interest and sinking fund charges were £831,280,947.[239] Of about 416,000 Australians who served, about 60,000 were killed and another 152,000 were wounded.[240]

Emergency military hospital during the Spanish flu pandemic, which killed about 675,000 people in the United States alone. Camp Funston, Kansas, 1918.

Diseases flourished in the chaotic wartime conditions; in 1914 alone, louse-borne epidemic typhus killed 200,000 in Serbia.[241] From 1918 to 1922, Russia had about 25 million infections and 3 million deaths from epidemic typhus.[242] In 1923, 13 million Russians contracted malaria, a sharp increase from the pre-war years;[243] in addition, a major influenza epidemic spread around the world. Overall, the 1918 flu pandemic killed at least 50 million people.[244][245]

Lobbying by Chaim Weizmann and fear that American Jews would encourage the United States to support Germany culminated in the British government's Balfour Declaration of 1917, endorsing creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.[246] A total of more than 1,172,000 Jewish soldiers served in the Allied and Central Power forces in World War I, including 275,000 in Austria-Hungary and 450,000 in Tsarist Russia.[247]

The social disruption and widespread violence of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the ensuing Russian Civil War sparked more than 2,000 pogroms in the former Russian Empire, mostly in Ukraine.[248] An estimated 60,000–200,000 civilian Jews were killed in the atrocities.[249]

Technology

Ground warfare

World War I began as a clash of 20th-century technology and 19th-century tactics, with the inevitably large ensuing casualties. By the end of 1917, however, the major armies, now numbering millions of men, had modernised and were making use of telephone, wireless communication,[253]armoured cars, tanks,[254] and aircraft. Infantry formations were reorganised, so that 100-man companies were no longer the main unit of manoeuvre; instead, squads of 10 or so men, under the command of a junior NCO, were favoured.

Artillery also underwent a revolution; in 1914, cannons were positioned in the front line and fired directly at their targets. By 1917, indirect fire with guns (as well as mortars and even machine guns) was commonplace, using new techniques for spotting and ranging, notably aircraft and the often overlooked field telephone.[255]Counter-battery missions became commonplace, also, and sound detection was used to locate enemy batteries.

A Russian armoured car, 1919

Germany was far ahead of the Allies in using heavy indirect fire, the German Army employed 150 mm (6 in) and 210 mm (8 in) howitzers in 1914, when typical French and British guns were only 75 mm (3 in) and 105 mm (4 in). The British had a 6-inch (152 mm) howitzer, but it was so heavy it had to be hauled to the field in pieces and assembled. The Germans also fielded Austrian 305 mm (12 in) and 420 mm (17 in) guns and, even at the beginning of the war, had inventories of various calibres of Minenwerfer, which were ideally suited for trench warfare.[256][257]

Much of the combat involved trench warfare, in which hundreds often died for each metre gained. Many of the deadliest battles in history occurred during World War I, such battles include Ypres, the Marne, Cambrai, the Somme, Verdun, and Gallipoli. The Germans employed the Haber process of nitrogen fixation to provide their forces with a constant supply of gunpowder despite the British naval blockade.[258] Artillery was responsible for the largest number of casualties[259] and consumed vast quantities of explosives, the large number of head wounds caused by exploding shells and fragmentation forced the combatant nations to develop the modern steel helmet, led by the French, who introduced the Adrian helmet in 1915. It was quickly followed by the Brodie helmet, worn by British Imperial and US troops, and in 1916 by the distinctive German Stahlhelm, a design, with improvements, still in use today.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime ...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

The most powerful land-based weapons were railway guns, weighing dozens of tons apiece,[264] the German ones were nicknamed Big Berthas, even though the namesake was not a railway gun. Germany developed the Paris Gun, able to bombard Paris from over 100 kilometres (62 mi), though shells were relatively light at 94 kilograms (210 lb).

Trenches, machine guns, air reconnaissance, barbed wire, and modern artillery with fragmentation shells helped bring the battle lines of World War I to a stalemate, the British and the French sought a solution with the creation of the tank and mechanised warfare. The British first tanks were used during the Battle of the Somme on 15 September 1916. Mechanical reliability was an issue, but the experiment proved its worth. Within a year, the British were fielding tanks by the hundreds, and they showed their potential during the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917, by breaking the Hindenburg Line, while combined arms teams captured 8,000 enemy soldiers and 100 guns. Meanwhile, the French introduced the first tanks with a rotating turret, the Renault FT, which became a decisive tool of the victory, the conflict also saw the introduction of light automatic weapons and submachine guns, such as the Lewis Gun, the Browning automatic rifle, and the Bergmann MP18.

Another new weapon, the flamethrower, was first used by the German army and later adopted by other forces, although not of high tactical value, the flamethrower was a powerful, demoralising weapon that caused terror on the battlefield.

Trench railways evolved to supply the enormous quantities of food, water, and ammunition required to support large numbers of soldiers in areas where conventional transportation systems had been destroyed. Internal combustion engines and improved traction systems for automobiles and trucks/lorries eventually rendered trench railways obsolete.

Areas taken in major attacks

On the Western Front neither side made impressive gains in the first three years of the war with attacks at Verdun, the Somme, Passchendaele, and Cambrai — the exception was Nivelle’s Offensive in which the German defence gave ground while mauling the attackers so badly that there were mutinies in the French Army. In 1918 the Germans smashed through the defence lines in three great attacks: Michael, on the Lys, and on the Aisne, which displayed the power of their new tactics. The Allies struck back at Soissons which showed the Germans that they must return to the defensive, and at Amiens; tanks played a prominent role in both of these assaults, as they had the year before at Cambrai.

The areas in the East were larger, the Germans did well at the First Masurian Lakes driving the invaders from East Prussia, and at Riga which led to the Russian’s suing for peace. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans joined for a great success at Gorlice–Tarnów which drove the Russians out of Poland; in a series of attacks along with the Bulgarians they occupied Serbia, Albania, Montenegro and most of Romania. The Allies successes came later in Palestine (the beginning of the end for the Ottomans), in Macedonia (which drove the Bulgarians out of the war), and at Vittorio Veneto (the final blow for the Austro-Hungarians).

The area occupied in East by the Central powers on 11 November 1918 was 1,042,600 km2, roughly the size of Columbia.

Naval

Germany deployed U-boats (submarines) after the war began. Alternating between restricted and unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic, the Kaiserliche Marine employed them to deprive the British Isles of vital supplies, the deaths of British merchant sailors and the seeming invulnerability of U-boats led to the development of depth charges (1916), hydrophones (passive sonar, 1917), blimps, hunter-killer submarines (HMS R-1, 1917), forward-throwing anti-submarine weapons, and dipping hydrophones (the latter two both abandoned in 1918).[94] To extend their operations, the Germans proposed supply submarines (1916). Most of these would be forgotten in the interwar period until World War II revived the need.[265]

Manned observation balloons, floating high above the trenches, were used as stationary reconnaissance platforms, reporting enemy movements and directing artillery. Balloons commonly had a crew of two, equipped with parachutes,[269] so that if there was an enemy air attack the crew could parachute to safety, at the time, parachutes were too heavy to be used by pilots of aircraft (with their marginal power output), and smaller versions were not developed until the end of the war; they were also opposed by the British leadership, who feared they might promote cowardice.[270]

Recognised for their value as observation platforms, balloons were important targets for enemy aircraft. To defend them against air attack, they were heavily protected by antiaircraft guns and patrolled by friendly aircraft; to attack them, unusual weapons such as air-to-air rockets were tried. Thus, the reconnaissance value of blimps and balloons contributed to the development of air-to-air combat between all types of aircraft, and to the trench stalemate, because it was impossible to move large numbers of troops undetected, the Germans conducted air raids on England during 1915 and 1916 with airships, hoping to damage British morale and cause aircraft to be diverted from the front lines, and indeed the resulting panic led to the diversion of several squadrons of fighters from France.[267][270]

War crimes

Baralong incidents

On 19 August 1915, the German submarine U-27 was sunk by the British Q-shipHMS Baralong. All German survivors were summarily executed by Baralong's crew on the orders of Lieutenant Godfrey Herbert, the captain of the ship. The shooting was reported to the media by American citizens who were on board the Nicosia, a British freighter loaded with war supplies, which was stopped by U-27 just minutes before the incident.[271]

On 24 September, Baralong destroyed U-41, which was in the process of sinking the cargo ship Urbino. According to Karl Goetz, the submarine's commander, Baralong continued to fly the US flag after firing on U-41 and then rammed the lifeboat – carrying the German survivors – sinking it.[272]

Torpedoing of HMHS Llandovery Castle

The Canadian hospital ship HMHS Llandovery Castle was torpedoed by the German submarine SM U-86 on 27 June 1918 in violation of international law. Only 24 of the 258 medical personnel, patients, and crew survived. Survivors reported that the U-boat surfaced and ran down the lifeboats, machine-gunning survivors in the water, the U-boat captain, Helmut Patzig, was charged with war crimes in Germany following the war, but escaped prosecution by going to the Free City of Danzig, beyond the jurisdiction of German courts.[273]

Chemical weapons in warfare

French soldiers making a gas and flame attack on German trenches in Flanders

The first successful use of poison gas as a weapon of warfare occurred during the Second Battle of Ypres (22 April – 25 May 1915).[274] Gas was soon used by all major belligerents throughout the war, it is estimated that the use of chemical weapons employed by both sides throughout the war had inflicted 1.3 million casualties. For example, the British had over 180,000 chemical weapons casualties during the war, and up to one-third of American casualties were caused by them, the Russian Army reportedly suffered roughly 500,000 chemical weapon casualties in World War I.[275] The use of chemical weapons in warfare was in direct violation of the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases and the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare, which prohibited their use.[276][277]

The effect of poison gas was not limited to combatants. Civilians were at risk from the gases as winds blew the poison gases through their towns, and they rarely received warnings or alerts of potential danger; in addition to absent warning systems, civilians often did not have access to effective gas masks. An estimated 100,000–260,000 civilian casualties were caused by chemical weapons during the conflict and tens of thousands more (along with military personnel) died from scarring of the lungs, skin damage, and cerebral damage in the years after the conflict ended. Many commanders on both sides knew such weapons would cause major harm to civilians but nonetheless continued to use them. British Field MarshalSir Douglas Haig wrote in his diary, "My officers and I were aware that such weapons would cause harm to women and children living in nearby towns, as strong winds were common in the battlefront. However, because the weapon was to be directed against the enemy, none of us were overly concerned at all."[278][279][280][281]

Genocide and ethnic cleansing

Armenians killed during the Armenian Genocide. Image taken from Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, written by Henry Morgenthau, Sr. and published in 1918.[282]

Austro-Hungarian soldiers executing men and women in Serbia, 1916[283]

The ethnic cleansing of the Ottoman Empire's Armenian population, including mass deportations and executions, during the final years of the Ottoman Empire is considered genocide.[284] The Ottomans carried out organised and systematic massacres of the Armenian population at the beginning of the war and portrayed deliberately provoked acts of Armenian resistance as rebellions to justify further extermination;[285] in early 1915, a number of Armenians volunteered to join the Russian forces and the Ottoman government used this as a pretext to issue the Tehcir Law (Law on Deportation), which authorised the deportation of Armenians from the Empire's eastern provinces to Syria between 1915 and 1918. The Armenians were intentionally marched to death and a number were attacked by Ottoman brigands.[286] While an exact number of deaths is unknown, the International Association of Genocide Scholars estimates 1.5 million.[284][287] The government of Turkey has consistently denied the genocide, arguing that those who died were victims of inter-ethnic fighting, famine, or disease during World War I; these claims are rejected by most historians.[288] Other ethnic groups were similarly attacked by the Ottoman Empire during this period, including Assyrians and Greeks, and some scholars consider those events to be part of the same policy of extermination.[289][290][291]

Rape of Belgium

The German invaders treated any resistance—such as sabotaging rail lines—as illegal and immoral, and shot the offenders and burned buildings in retaliation; in addition, they tended to suspect that most civilians were potential francs-tireurs (guerrillas) and, accordingly, took and sometimes killed hostages from among the civilian population. The German army executed over 6,500 French and Belgian civilians between August and November 1914, usually in near-random large-scale shootings of civilians ordered by junior German officers, the German Army destroyed 15,000–20,000 buildings—most famously the university library at Louvain—and generated a wave of refugees of over a million people. Over half the German regiments in Belgium were involved in major incidents.[293] Thousands of workers were shipped to Germany to work in factories. British propaganda dramatising the Rape of Belgium attracted much attention in the United States, while Berlin said it was both lawful and necessary because of the threat of franc-tireurs like those in France in 1870,[294] the British and French magnified the reports and disseminated them at home and in the United States, where they played a major role in dissolving support for Germany.[295][296]

The British soldiers of the war were initially volunteers but increasingly were conscripted into service. Surviving veterans, returning home, often found they could discuss their experiences only amongst themselves. Grouping together, they formed "veterans' associations" or "Legions". A small number of personal accounts of American veterans have been collected by the Library of CongressVeterans History Project.[297]

Prisoners of war

German prisoners in a French prison camp during the later part of the war

About eight million men surrendered and were held in POW camps during the war. All nations pledged to follow the Hague Conventions on fair treatment of prisoners of war, and the survival rate for POWs was generally much higher than that of combatants at the front.[298] Individual surrenders were uncommon; large units usually surrendered en masse. At the siege of Maubeuge about 40,000 French soldiers surrendered, at the battle of Galicia Russians took about 100,000 to 120,000 Austrian captives, at the Brusilov Offensive about 325,000 to 417,000 Germans and Austrians surrendered to Russians, and at the Battle of Tannenberg 92,000 Russians surrendered. When the besieged garrison of Kaunas surrendered in 1915, some 20,000 Russians became prisoners, at the battle near Przasnysz (February–March 1915) 14,000 Germans surrendered to Russians, and at the First Battle of the Marne about 12,000 Germans surrendered to the Allies. 25–31% of Russian losses (as a proportion of those captured, wounded, or killed) were to prisoner status; for Austria-Hungary 32%, for Italy 26%, for France 12%, for Germany 9%; for Britain 7%. Prisoners from the Allied armies totalled about 1.4 million (not including Russia, which lost 2.5–3.5 million men as prisoners). From the Central Powers about 3.3 million men became prisoners; most of them surrendered to Russians.[299] Germany held 2.5 million prisoners; Russia held 2.2–2.9 million; while Britain and France held about 720,000. Most were captured just before the Armistice, the United States held 48,000. The most dangerous moment was the act of surrender, when helpless soldiers were sometimes gunned down.[300][301] Once prisoners reached a camp, conditions were, in general, satisfactory (and much better than in World War II), thanks in part to the efforts of the International Red Cross and inspections by neutral nations. However, conditions were terrible in Russia: starvation was common for prisoners and civilians alike; about 15–20% of the prisoners in Russia died and in Central Powers imprisonment—8% of Russians.[302] In Germany, food was scarce, but only 5% died.[303][304][305]

The Ottoman Empire often treated POWs poorly,[306] some 11,800 British Empire soldiers, most of them Indians, became prisoners after the Siege of Kut in Mesopotamia in April 1916; 4,250 died in captivity.[307] Although many were in a poor condition when captured, Ottoman officers forced them to march 1,100 kilometres (684 mi) to Anatolia. A survivor said: "We were driven along like beasts; to drop out was to die."[308] The survivors were then forced to build a railway through the Taurus Mountains.

In Russia, when the prisoners from the Czech Legion of the Austro-Hungarian army were released in 1917, they re-armed themselves and briefly became a military and diplomatic force during the Russian Civil War.

While the Allied prisoners of the Central Powers were quickly sent home at the end of active hostilities, the same treatment was not granted to Central Power prisoners of the Allies and Russia, many of whom served as forced labour, e.g., in France until 1920. They were released only after many approaches by the Red Cross to the Allied Supreme Council.[309] German prisoners were still being held in Russia as late as 1924.[310]

Military attachés and war correspondents

Military and civilian observers from every major power closely followed the course of the war. Many were able to report on events from a perspective somewhat akin to modern "embedded" positions within the opposing land and naval forces.

In the Middle East, Arab nationalism soared in Ottoman territories in response to the rise of Turkish nationalism during the war, with Arab nationalist leaders advocating the creation of a pan-Arab state; in 1916, the Arab Revolt began in Ottoman-controlled territories of the Middle East in an effort to achieve independence.[313]

In East Africa, Iyasu V of Ethiopia was supporting the Dervish state who were at war with the British in the Somaliland Campaign.[314] Von Syburg, the German envoy in Addis Ababa, said, "now the time has come for Ethiopia to regain the coast of the Red Sea driving the Italians home, to restore the Empire to its ancient size." The Ethiopian Empire was on the verge of entering World War I on the side of the Central Powers before Iyasu's overthrow due to Allied pressure on the Ethiopian aristocracy.[315]

A number of socialist parties initially supported the war when it began in August 1914,[312] but European socialists split on national lines, with the concept of class conflict held by radical socialists such as Marxists and syndicalists being overborne by their patriotic support for the war.[316] Once the war began, Austrian, British, French, German, and Russian socialists followed the rising nationalist current by supporting their countries' intervention in the war.[317]

Italian nationalism was stirred by the outbreak of the war and was initially strongly supported by a variety of political factions. One of the most prominent and popular Italian nationalist supporters of the war was Gabriele d'Annunzio, who promoted Italian irredentism and helped sway the Italian public to support intervention in the war,[318] the Italian Liberal Party, under the leadership of Paolo Boselli, promoted intervention in the war on the side of the Allies and used the Dante Alighieri Society to promote Italian nationalism.[319] Italian socialists were divided on whether to support the war or oppose it; some were militant supporters of the war, including Benito Mussolini and Leonida Bissolati.[320] However, the Italian Socialist Party decided to oppose the war after anti-militarist protestors were killed, resulting in a general strike called Red Week.[321] The Italian Socialist Party purged itself of pro-war nationalist members, including Mussolini.[321] Mussolini, a syndicalist who supported the war on grounds of irredentist claims on Italian-populated regions of Austria-Hungary, formed the pro-interventionist Il Popolo d'Italia and the Fasci Rivoluzionario d'Azione Internazionalista ("Revolutionary Fasci for International Action") in October 1914 that later developed into the Fasci di Combattimento in 1919, the origin of fascism.[322] Mussolini's nationalism enabled him to raise funds from Ansaldo (an armaments firm) and other companies to create Il Popolo d'Italia to convince socialists and revolutionaries to support the war.[323]

Benedict XV, elected to the papacy less than three months into World War I, made the war and its consequences the main focus of his early pontificate. In stark contrast to his predecessor,[324] five days after his election he spoke of his determination to do what he could to bring peace, his first encyclical, Ad beatissimi Apostolorum, given 1 November 1914, was concerned with this subject. Benedict XV found his abilities and unique position as a religious emissary of peace ignored by the belligerent powers, the 1915 Treaty of London between Italy and the Triple Entente included secret provisions whereby the Allies agreed with Italy to ignore papal peace moves towards the Central Powers. Consequently, the publication of Benedict's proposed seven-point Peace Note of August 1917 was roundly ignored by all parties except Austria-Hungary.[325]

The Deserter, 1916. Anti-war cartoon depicting Jesus facing a firing squad with soldiers from five European countries.

that war should be avoided at almost any cost, that war would solve nothing, that the whole of Europe and more besides would be reduced to ruin, and that the loss of life would be so large that whole populations would be decimated. In our ignorance I, and many of us, felt almost ashamed of a British General who uttered such depressing and unpatriotic sentiments, but during the next four years, those of us who survived the holocaust—probably not more than one-quarter of us—learned how right the General's prognosis was and how courageous he had been to utter it.[326]

Voicing these sentiments did not hinder Smith-Dorrien's career, or prevent him from doing his duty in World War I to the best of his abilities.

Possible execution at Verdun at the time of the mutinies in 1917. The original French text accompanying this photograph notes however that the uniforms are those of 1914/15 and that the execution may be that of a spy at the beginning of the war.

Many countries jailed those who spoke out against the conflict, these included Eugene Debs in the United States and Bertrand Russell in Britain. In the US, the Espionage Act of 1917 and Sedition Act of 1918 made it a federal crime to oppose military recruitment or make any statements deemed "disloyal". Publications at all critical of the government were removed from circulation by postal censors,[162] and many served long prison sentences for statements of fact deemed unpatriotic.

A number of nationalists opposed intervention, particularly within states that the nationalists were hostile to, although the vast majority of Irish people consented to participate in the war in 1914 and 1915, a minority of advanced Irish nationalists staunchly opposed taking part.[327] The war began amid the Home Rule crisis in Ireland that had resurfaced in 1912 and, by July 1914, there was a serious possibility of an outbreak of civil war in Ireland. Irish nationalists and Marxists attempted to pursue Irish independence, culminating in the Easter Rising of 1916, with Germany sending 20,000 rifles to Ireland to stir unrest in Britain,[328] the UK government placed Ireland under martial law in response to the Easter Rising; although, once the immediate threat of revolution had dissipated, the authorities did try to make concessions to nationalist feeling.[329] However, opposition to involvement in the war increased in Ireland, resulting in the Conscription Crisis of 1918.

In Milan, in May 1917, Bolshevik revolutionaries organised and engaged in rioting calling for an end to the war, and managed to close down factories and stop public transportation,[333] the Italian army was forced to enter Milan with tanks and machine guns to face Bolsheviks and anarchists, who fought violently until 23 May when the army gained control of the city. Almost 50 people (including three Italian soldiers) were killed and over 800 people arrested.[333]

In northern Germany, the end of October 1918 saw the beginning of the German Revolution of 1918–1919. Units of the German Navy refused to set sail for a last, large-scale operation in a war they saw as good as lost; this initiated the uprising. The sailors' revolt, which then ensued in the naval ports of Wilhelmshaven and Kiel, spread across the whole country within days and led to the proclamation of a republic on 9 November 1918 and shortly thereafter to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II.

Conscription

Conscription was common in most European countries. However, it was controversial in English-speaking countries, it was especially unpopular among minority ethnic groups—especially the Irish Catholics in Ireland[335] and Australia, and the French Catholics in Canada.

Conscription in Britain

In Britain, conscription resulted in the calling up of nearly every physically fit man in Britain—six of ten million eligible. Of these, about 750,000 lost their lives. Most deaths were to young unmarried men; however, 160,000 wives lost husbands and 300,000 children lost fathers.[338] Conscription during the First World War began when the British government passed the Military Service Act in 1916, the act specified that single men aged 18 to 40 years old were liable to be called up for military service unless they were widowed with children or ministers of a religion. There was a system of Military Service Tribunals to adjudicate upon claims for exemption upon the grounds of performing civilian work of national importance, domestic hardship, health, and conscientious objection, the law went through several changes before the war ended. Married men were exempt in the original Act, although this was changed in June 1916, the age limit was also eventually raised to 51 years old. Recognition of work of national importance also diminished, and in the last year of the war there was some support for the conscription of clergy.[339] Conscription lasted until mid-1919. Due to the political situation in Ireland, conscription was never applied there; only in England, Scotland and Wales.

United States

In the United States, conscription began in 1917 and was generally well received, with a few pockets of opposition in isolated rural areas,[340] the administration decided to rely primarily on conscription, rather than voluntary enlistment, to raise military manpower for when only 73,000 volunteers enlisted out of the initial 1 million target in the first six weeks of the war.[341] In 1917 10 million men were registered, this was deemed to be inadequate, so age ranges were increased and exemptions reduced, and so by the end of 1918 this increased to 24 million men that were registered with nearly 3 million inducted into the military services. The draft was universal and included blacks on the same terms as whites, although they served in different units; in all 367,710 black Americans were drafted (13.0% of the total), compared to 2,442,586 white (86.9%).

Forms of resistance ranged from peaceful protest to violent demonstrations and from humble letter-writing campaigns asking for mercy to radical newspapers demanding reform, the most common tactics were dodging and desertion, and many communities sheltered and defended their draft dodgers as political heroes. Many socialists were jailed for "obstructing the recruitment or enlistment service", the most famous was Eugene Debs, head of the Socialist Party of America, who ran for president in 1920 from his prison cell. In 1917 a number of radicals and anarchists challenged the new draft law in federal court, arguing that it was a direct violation of the Thirteenth Amendment's prohibition against slavery and involuntary servitude, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of the draft act in the Selective Draft Law Cases on January 7, 1918.

Austria-Hungary

Like all of the armies of mainland Europe, Austria-Hungary relied on conscription to fill their ranks. Officer recruitment however, was voluntary, the effect of this at the start of the war was that well over a quarter of the rank and file were Slavs, while more than 75% of the officers were ethnic-Germans. This was much resented, the army has been described as being "run on colonial lines" and the Slav soldiers as "disaffected". Thus conscription contributed greatly to Austria's disastrous performance on the battlefield.[342]

Diplomacy

The non-military diplomatic and propaganda interactions among the nations were designed to build support for the cause, or to undermine support for the enemy, for the most part, wartime diplomacy focused on five issues: propaganda campaigns; defining and redefining the war goals, which became harsher as the war went on; luring neutral nations (Italy, Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, Romania) into the coalition by offering slices of enemy territory; and encouragement by the Allies of nationalistic minority movements inside the Central Powers, especially among Czechs, Poles, and Arabs. In addition, there were multiple peace proposals coming from neutrals, or one side or the other; none of them progressed very far.[343][344][345]

Legacy and memory

... "Strange, friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said the other, "Save the undone years"...

The War was an unprecedented triumph for natural science. [Francis] Bacon had promised that knowledge would be power, and power it was: power to destroy the bodies and souls of men more rapidly than had ever been done by human agency before. This triumph paved the way to other triumphs: improvements in transport, in sanitation, in surgery, medicine, and psychiatry, in commerce and industry, and, above all, in preparations for the next war.

The first tentative efforts to comprehend the meaning and consequences of modern warfare began during the initial phases of the war, and this process continued throughout and after the end of hostilities, and is still underway, more than a century later.

Historiography

Historian Heather Jones argues that the historiography has been reinvigorated by the cultural turn in recent years. Scholars have raised entirely new questions regarding military occupation, radicalisation of politics, race, and the male body. Furthermore, new research has revised our understanding of five major topics that historians have long debated, these are: Why the war began, why the Allies won, whether generals were responsible for high casualty rates, how the soldiers endured the horrors of trench warfare, and to what extent the civilian homefront accepted and endorsed the war effort.[347]

World War I had a lasting impact on social memory, it was seen by many in Britain as signalling the end of an era of stability stretching back to the Victorian period, and across Europe many regarded it as a watershed.[353] Historian Samuel Hynes explained:

A generation of innocent young men, their heads full of high abstractions like Honour, Glory and England, went off to war to make the world safe for democracy, they were slaughtered in stupid battles planned by stupid generals. Those who survived were shocked, disillusioned and embittered by their war experiences, and saw that their real enemies were not the Germans, but the old men at home who had lied to them, they rejected the values of the society that had sent them to war, and in doing so separated their own generation from the past and from their cultural inheritance.[354]

These beliefs did not become widely shared because they offered the only accurate interpretation of wartime events; in every respect, the war was much more complicated than they suggest. In recent years, historians have argued persuasively against almost every popular cliché of World War I, it has been pointed out that, although the losses were devastating, their greatest impact was socially and geographically limited. The many emotions other than horror experienced by soldiers in and out of the front line, including comradeship, boredom, and even enjoyment, have been recognised, the war is not now seen as a 'fight about nothing', but as a war of ideals, a struggle between aggressive militarism and more or less liberal democracy. It has been acknowledged that British generals were often capable men facing difficult challenges, and that it was under their command that the British army played a major part in the defeat of the Germans in 1918: a great forgotten victory.[355]

Though these views have been discounted as "myths",[354][356] they are common, they have dynamically changed according to contemporary influences, reflecting in the 1950s perceptions of the war as "aimless" following the contrasting Second World War and emphasising conflict within the ranks during times of class conflict in the 1960s. The majority of additions to the contrary are often rejected.[355]

Social trauma

The social trauma caused by unprecedented rates of casualties manifested itself in different ways, which have been the subject of subsequent historical debate.[357]

The optimism of la belle époque was destroyed, and those who had fought in the war were referred to as the Lost Generation,[358] for years afterwards, people mourned the dead, the missing, and the many disabled.[359] Many soldiers returned with severe trauma, suffering from shell shock (also called neurasthenia, a condition related to posttraumatic stress disorder).[360] Many more returned home with few after-effects; however, their silence about the war contributed to the conflict's growing mythological status. Though many participants did not share in the experiences of combat or spend any significant time at the front, or had positive memories of their service, the images of suffering and trauma became the widely shared perception, such historians as Dan Todman, Paul Fussell, and Samuel Heyns have all published works since the 1990s arguing that these common perceptions of the war are factually incorrect.[357]

Discontent in Germany

The rise of Nazism and Fascism included a revival of the nationalist spirit and a rejection of many post-war changes. Similarly, the popularity of the stab-in-the-back legend (German: Dolchstoßlegende) was a testament to the psychological state of defeated Germany and was a rejection of responsibility for the conflict, this conspiracy theory of betrayal became common, and the German populace came to see themselves as victims. The widespread acceptance of the "stab-in-the-back" theory delegitimised the Weimar government and destabilised the system, opening it to extremes of right and left.

Communist and fascist movements around Europe drew strength from this theory and enjoyed a new level of popularity, these feelings were most pronounced in areas directly or harshly affected by the war. Adolf Hitler was able to gain popularity by using German discontent with the still controversial Treaty of Versailles.[361] World War II was in part a continuation of the power struggle never fully resolved by World War I. Furthermore, it was common for Germans in the 1930s to justify acts of aggression due to perceived injustices imposed by the victors of World War I.[362][363][364] American historian William Rubinstein wrote that:

The 'Age of Totalitarianism' included nearly all of the infamous examples of genocide in modern history, headed by the Jewish Holocaust, but also comprising the mass murders and purges of the Communist world, other mass killings carried out by Nazi Germany and its allies, and also the Armenian Genocide of 1915. All these slaughters, it is argued here, had a common origin, the collapse of the elite structure and normal modes of government of much of central, eastern and southern Europe as a result of World War I, without which surely neither Communism nor Fascism would have existed except in the minds of unknown agitators and crackpots.[365]

Economic effects

One of the most dramatic effects of the war was the expansion of governmental powers and responsibilities in Britain, France, the United States, and the Dominions of the British Empire. To harness all the power of their societies, governments created new ministries and powers. New taxes were levied and laws enacted, all designed to bolster the war effort; many have lasted to this day. Similarly, the war strained the abilities of some formerly large and bureaucratised governments, such as in Austria-Hungary and Germany.

Gross domestic product (GDP) increased for three Allies (Britain, Italy, and the United States), but decreased in France and Russia, in neutral Netherlands, and in the three main Central Powers. The shrinkage in GDP in Austria, Russia, France, and the Ottoman Empire ranged between 30% and 40%; in Austria, for example, most pigs were slaughtered, so at war's end there was no meat.

In all nations, the government's share of GDP increased, surpassing 50% in both Germany and France and nearly reaching that level in Britain. To pay for purchases in the United States, Britain cashed in its extensive investments in American railroads and then began borrowing heavily from Wall Street. President Wilson was on the verge of cutting off the loans in late 1916, but allowed a great increase in US government lending to the Allies, after 1919, the US demanded repayment of these loans. The repayments were, in part, funded by German reparations that, in turn, were supported by American loans to Germany, this circular system collapsed in 1931 and some loans were never repaid. Britain still owed the United States $4.4 billion[366] of World War I debt in 1934, the last instalment was finally paid in 2015[367]

Macro- and micro-economic consequences devolved from the war. Families were altered by the departure of many men, with the death or absence of the primary wage earner, women were forced into the workforce in unprecedented numbers. At the same time, industry needed to replace the lost labourers sent to war, this aided the struggle for voting rights for women.[368]

World War I further compounded the gender imbalance, adding to the phenomenon of surplus women, the deaths of nearly one million men during the war in Britain increased the gender gap by almost a million: from 670,000 to 1,700,000. The number of unmarried women seeking economic means grew dramatically; in addition, demobilisation and economic decline following the war caused high unemployment. The war increased female employment; however, the return of demobilised men displaced many from the workforce, as did the closure of many of the wartime factories.

In Britain, rationing was finally imposed in early 1918, limited to meat, sugar, and fats (butter and margarine), but not bread, the new system worked smoothly. From 1914 to 1918, trade union membership doubled, from a little over four million to a little over eight million.

Britain turned to her colonies for help in obtaining essential war materials whose supply from traditional sources had become difficult. Geologists such as Albert Ernest Kitson were called on to find new resources of precious minerals in the African colonies. Kitson discovered important new deposits of manganese, used in munitions production, in the Gold Coast.[369]

Article 231 of the Treaty of Versailles (the so-called "war guilt" clause) stated Germany accepted responsibility for "all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies."[370] It was worded as such to lay a legal basis for reparations, and a similar clause was inserted in the treaties with Austria and Hungary, however neither of them interpreted it as an admission of war guilt."[371] In 1921, the total reparation sum was placed at 132 billion gold marks. However, "Allied experts knew that Germany could not pay" this sum, the total sum was divided into three categories, with the third being "deliberately designed to be chimerical" and its "primary function was to mislead public opinion ... into believing the "total sum was being maintained."[372] Thus, 50 billion gold marks (12.5 billion dollars) "represented the actual Allied assessment of German capacity to pay" and "therefore ... represented the total German reparations" figure that had to be paid.[372]

This figure could be paid in cash or in kind (coal, timber, chemical dyes, etc.). In addition, some of the territory lost—via the treaty of Versailles—was credited towards the reparation figure as were other acts such as helping to restore the Library of Louvain.[373] By 1929, the Great Depression arrived, causing political chaos throughout the world;[374] in 1932 the payment of reparations was suspended by the international community, by which point Germany had only paid the equivalent of 20.598 billion gold marks in reparations.[375] With the rise of Adolf Hitler, all bonds and loans that had been issued and taken out during the 1920s and early 1930s were cancelled. David Andelman notes "refusing to pay doesn't make an agreement null and void. The bonds, the agreement, still exist." Thus, following the Second World War, at the London Conference in 1953, Germany agreed to resume payment on the money borrowed. On 3 October 2010, Germany made the final payment on these bonds.[i]

The war contributed to the evolution of the wristwatch from women's jewellery to a practical everyday item, replacing the pocketwatch, which requires a free hand to operate.[380] Military funding of advancements in radio contributed to the postwar popularity of the medium.[380]

^Hungary was considered one of the successor states to Austria-Hungary.

^Although the Treaty of Sèvres was intended to end the war between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire, the Allies and the Republic of Turkey, the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, agreed to the Treaty of Lausanne.

^World War I officially ended when Germany paid off the final amount of reparations imposed on it by the Allies.[376][377][378][379]

^Erickson, Edward J. (2001). Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War: Forward by General Hüseyiln Kivrikoglu. No. 201 Contributions in Military Studies. Westport Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p. 163. OCLC43481698.

^Falls, Cyril (1930). Military Operations Egypt & Palestine from June 1917 to the End of the War. Official History of the Great War Based on Official Documents by Direction of the Historical Section of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Volume 2 Part I. Maps by A. F. Becke. London: HM Stationery Office. p. 59. OCLC644354483.

^Wavell, Earl (1968) [1933]. "The Palestine Campaigns". In Sheppard, Eric William. A Short History of the British Army (4th ed.). London: Constable & Co. pp. 153–5. OCLC35621223.

^Erickson, Edward J. (2001). Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War: Forward by General Hüseyiln Kivrikoglu. No. 201 Contributions in Military Studies. Westport Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p. 195. OCLC43481698.

^Christie, Norm M (1997). The Canadians at Cambrai and the Canal du Nord, August–September 1918. For King and Empire: A Social History and Battlefield Tour. CEF Books. ISBN1-896979-18-1. OCLC166099767.

^Painter 2012, p. 25. Over the course of the war the United States supplied more than 80 percent of Allied oil requirements, and after US entry into the war, the United States helped provide and protect tankers transporting oil to Europe. US oil resources meant that insufficient energy supplies did not hamper the Allies, as they did the Central Powers.

^Dennis Mack Smith. 1997. Modern Italy; A Political History. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. Pp. 284.

^Aubert, Roger (1981). "Chapter 37: The Outbreak of World War I". In Hubert Jedin; John Dolan. History of the Church. The Church in the industrial age. 9. Translated by Resch, Margit. London: Burns & Oates. p. 521. ISBN0-86012-091-0.

^Brock, Peter, These Strange Criminals: An Anthology of Prison Memoirs by Conscientious Objectors to Military Service from the Great War to the Cold War, p. 14, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004, ISBN0-8020-8707-8

^Hall, Allan (28 September 2010). "First World War officially ends". The Telegraph. Berlin. Retrieved 15 March 2017. The final payment of £59.5 million, writes off the crippling debt that was the price for one world war and laid the foundations for another.

^Suddath, Claire (4 October 2010). "Why Did World War I Just End?". Time. Retrieved 1 July 2013. World War I ended over the weekend. Germany made its final reparations-related payment for the Great War on Oct. 3, nearly 92 years after the country's defeat by the Allies.

Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed. 1922) comprises the 11th edition plus three new volumes 30-31-32 that cover events since 1911 with thorough coverage of the war as well as every country and colony. partly online and list of article titles

Humphries, Mark Osborne (2007). ""Old Wine in New Bottles": A Comparison of British and Canadian Preparations for the Battle of Arras". In Hayes, Geoffrey; Iarocci, Andrew; Bechthold, Mike. Vimy Ridge: A Canadian Reassessment. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. pp. 65–85. ISBN0-88920-508-6.

Lyons, Michael J (1999). World War I: A Short History (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall. ISBN0-13-020551-6.

Ludendorff, Erich (1919). My War Memories, 1914–1918. OCLC60104290. also published by Harper as "Ludendorff's Own Story, August 1914 – November 1918: The Great War from the Siege of Liège to the Signing of the Armistice as Viewed from the Grand Headquarters of the German Army" OCLC561160 (original title Meine Kriegserinnerungen, 1914–1918)

Magliveras, Konstantinos D (1999). Exclusion from Participation in International Organisations: The Law and Practice behind Member States' Expulsion and Suspension of Membership. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ISBN90-411-1239-1.

Martel, Gordon (2003). The Origins of the First World War. Pearson Longman, Harlow.

Moon, John Ellis van Courtland (July 1996). United States Chemical Warfare Policy in World War II: A Captive of Coalition Policy?. The Journal of Military History. 60. Society for Military History. pp. 495–511. doi:10.2307/2944522. JSTOR2944522.

Mosier, John (2001). "Germany and the Development of Combined Arms Tactics". Myth of the Great War: How the Germans Won the Battles and How the Americans Saved the Allies. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN0-06-019676-9.

Raudzens, George (October 1990). "War-Winning Weapons: The Measurement of Technological Determinism in Military History". The Journal of Military History. Society for Military History. 54 (4): 403–434. doi:10.2307/1986064. JSTOR1986064.

Smith, David James (2010). One Morning In Sarajevo. Hachette UK. ISBN978-0-297-85608-5. He was photographed on the way to the station and the photograph has been reproduced many times in books and articles, claiming to depict the arrest of Gavrilo Princip. But there is no photograph of Gavro's arrest – this photograph shows the arrest of Behr.

Primary sources

Historiography and memory

Baker, Kevin (June 2006). "Stabbed in the Back! The past and future of a right-wing myth". Harper's Magazine.

Deak, John. "The Great War and the Forgotten Realm: The Habsburg Monarchy and the First World War" Journal of Modern History (2014) 86#2 pp: 336–380.

Iriye, Akira. "The Historiographic Impact of the Great War". Diplomatic History (July 2014) doi:10.1093/dh/dhu035

Jones, Heather. "As the centenary approaches: the regeneration of First World War historiography". Historical Journal (2013) 56#3 pp: 857–878.

Jones, Heather. "Goodbye to all that?: Memory and meaning in the commemoration of the first world war". Juncture (2014) 20#4 pp: 287–291.

Kitchen, James E., Alisa Miller and Laura Rowe, eds. Other Combatants, Other Fronts: Competing Histories of the First World War (2011) excerpt

Kramer, Alan. "Recent Historiography of the First World War – Part I", Journal of Modern European History (Feb. 2014) 12#1 pp 5–27; "Recent Historiography of the First World War (Part II)", (May 2014) 12#2 pp 155–174

Mulligan, William. "The Trial Continues: New Directions in the Study of the Origins of the First World War". English Historical Review (2014) 129#538 pp: 639–666.

Reynolds, David. The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century (2014) Excerpt and text search

Sanborn, Joshua. "Russian Historiography on the Origins of the First World War Since the Fischer Controversy". Journal of Contemporary History (2013) 48#2 pp: 350–362.

Sharp, Heather. "Representing Australia's Involvement in the First World War: Discrepancies between Public Discourses and School History Textbooks from 1916 to 1936". Journal of Educational Media, Memory, and Society (2014) 6#1 pp: 1–23.

Trout, Stephen. "On the Battlefield of Memory: The First World War and American Remembrance, 1919–1941 (2013)

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Winter, Jay, ed. The Cambridge History of the First World War (2 vol. Cambridge University Press, 2014)

1.
Battle of the Somme
–
The Battle of the Somme, also known as the Somme Offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British and French empires against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the reaches of the River Somme in France. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies and was the largest battle of the First World War on the Western Front, more than one million men were wounded or killed, making it one of the bloodiest battles in human history. The French and British had committed themselves to an offensive on the Somme during Allied discussions at Chantilly, Oise, in December 1915. Initial plans called for the French army to undertake the main part of the Somme offensive, the first day on the Somme was, in terms of casualties, also the worst day in the history of the British army, which suffered 57,470 casualties. These occurred mainly on the front between the Albert–Bapaume road and Gommecourt, where the attack was defeated and few British troops reached the German front line, the battle is notable for the importance of air power and the first use of the tank. At the end of the battle, British and French forces had penetrated 10 km into German-occupied territory, the Anglo-French armies failed to capture Péronne and halted 5 km from Bapaume, where the German armies maintained their positions over the winter. Debate continues over the necessity, significance and effect of the battle, David Frum opined that a century later, the Somme remains the most harrowing place-name in the history of the British Empire. Allied war strategy for 1916 was decided at the Chantilly Conference from 6–8 December 1915, in December 1915, General Sir Douglas Haig replaced Field Marshal Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of the BEF. Haig favoured a British offensive in Flanders close to BEF supply routes, to drive the Germans from the Belgian coast, Haig was not formally subordinate to Marshal Joseph Joffre but the British played a lesser role on the Western Front and complied with French strategy. A week later the Germans began an offensive against the French at Verdun, by 31 May, the ambitious Franco-British plan for a decisive victory, had been reduced to a limited offensive to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun with a battle of attrition on the Somme. The Chief of the German General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, intended to end the war by splitting the Anglo-French Entente in 1916, Falkenhayn chose to attack towards Verdun to take the Meuse heights and make Verdun untenable. The British would then have to begin a hasty relief offensive, Falkenhayn expected the relief offensive to fall south of Arras against the Sixth Army and be destroyed. If such Franco-British defeats were not enough, Germany would attack the remnants of armies and end the western alliance for good. Eloi, south of Ypres and reduced the German counter-offensive strategy north of the Somme, to one of passive, the Battle of Verdun began a week after Joffre and Haig agreed to mount an offensive on the Somme. The battle changed the nature of the offensive on the Somme, as French divisions were diverted to Verdun, German overestimation of the cost of Verdun to the French contributed to the concentration of German infantry and guns on the north bank of the Somme. The German offensive at Verdun was suspended in July, and troops, guns, the Brusilov Offensive, absorbed the extra forces that had been requested on 2 June by Fritz von Below, commanding the German Second Army, for a spoiling attack on the Somme. During the offensive the Russians inflicted c. 1,500,000 losses including c. 407,000 prisoners, three divisions were ordered from France to the Eastern Front on 9 June and the spoiling attack on the Somme was abandoned

2.
Mark V tank
–
The British Mark V tank was an upgraded version of the Mark IV tank. The tank was improved in several aspects, chiefly the new steering system and engine, but it fell short in other such as mechanical reliability. However, Mark V was successful, especially given its limited service history, the designation Mark V was switched to an improved version of the Mark IV, equipped with the new systems. The original design of the Mark IV was to have been an improvement on the Mark III. The Mark V thus turned out similar to the original design of the Mark IV – i. e. a greatly modified Mark III. Production of the Mark V started at Metropolitan Carriage and Wagon at the end of 1917, four hundred were built,200 Males and Females, the Males armed with 6-pounder guns and machine guns, the Females with machine guns only. Several were converted to Hermaphrodites by fitting one male and one female sponson and this measure was intended to ensure that female tanks would not be outgunned when faced with captured British male tanks in German use, or the Germans own A7V. However, the war ended in November 1918, and few Mark VIIIs would be built, the Mark V was also the basis of the Mk IX Troop Carrier, a dedicated Armoured Personnel Carrier, but only 34 were completed by the end of the war. After the war, most of the British Armys tank units were disbanded, the British Armys interest shifted more to lighter, faster tanks, and the Mark V was partially replaced by the Vickers Medium Mark I during the mid-1920s. Although the Vickers Medium Mark I was heavier Vickers A1E1 Independent reached prototype stage in 1926, the remaining Mark Vs appear to have been replaced by medium tanks by the end of the decade. In early 1917, some British tanks were tested with experimental powerplant and these included petrol-electric schemes, hydraulic systems, a multiple clutch system, and an epicyclic gearbox from Major W. G. Wilson. Though the petrol-electrics had advantages, Wilsons design was capable of production and was selected for use in future tanks, the Mark V had more power from a new Ricardo engine. Use of Wilsons epicyclic steering gear meant that only a driver was needed. On the roof towards the rear of the tank, behind the engine, was a raised cabin. An additional machine-gun mount was fitted at the rear of the hull, the first problem with the Ricardo engine had to do with its placement. The engine was mounted, meaning it was placed directly in the center of the crew compartment. In 1917, modern heat shielding was still away from being invented. The substitute at this point was a layer of sheet metal, which was less than adequate for stopping the extreme temperatures of the engine

3.
Hindenburg Line
–
The Hindenburg Line was a German defensive position of World War I, built during the winter of 1916–1917 on the Western Front, from Arras to Laffaux, near Soissons on the Aisne. In 1916, the German offensive at the Battle of Verdun had been a costly failure, the Anglo-French offensive at the Battle of the Somme had forced a defensive battle on the Germans, leaving the western armies exhausted. On the Eastern Front, the Brusilov Offensive had inflicted huge losses on the Austro-Hungarian armies in Russia, the declaration of war by Romania had placed additional strain on the German army and war economy. The shorter defensive position behind the Noyon Salient was built to economise on manpower, contain an Allied breakthrough, the British and French armies would need about eight weeks to rebuild roads, bridges and railways in the abandoned area before they could attack. By the beginning of 1917, the outlook for the Germans made a retirement inevitable. German divisions on the Western Front numbered 133 on 25 January 1917, reducing the German manpower shortage, greater output of explosives, ammunition and weapons by German industry to provide the means to counter the Allied Materialschlacht was attempted in the Hindenburg Programme of August 1916. Production did not sufficiently increase over the winter, with only 60 percent of the expected to be fulfilled by the summer of 1917. News of the demolitions and the state of French civilians left behind, were serious blows to German prestige in neutral countries. Divisions released by Operation Alberich and other reinforcements, increased the number of divisions on the Aisne front to 38 by early April. The Hindenburg Line was attacked several times in 1917, notably at St. Quentin, Bullecourt, in August 1916 the German armies on the Somme had been subjected to great strain, the IX Reserve Corps had been shattered in the defence of Pozières. Ten fresh divisions had been brought into the Somme front and a division had been put into the line opposite the British. Destruction, capture, damage, wear and defective ammunition had caused 1,068 of 1,208 field guns and 371 of 820 heavy guns to be out of action by the end of August. The 2nd Army had been starved of reinforcements in mid-August, to replace exhausted divisions in the 1st Army, the emergency in Russia caused by the Brusilov Offensive, the entry of Romania into the war and the French counter offensive at Verdun had already overstretched the German army. The new supreme command ordered an end to attacks at Verdun and the dispatch of troops there to Romania. The western front commanders were told that no reserves were available for offensive operations, on 21 September, after the battle of Flers–Courcelette, Hindenburg ordered that the Somme front was to have priority in the west for troops and supplies. By the end of the Battle of Morval Rupprecht had no reserves left on the Somme front, during September, the Germans sent another thirteen fresh divisions to the British sector and scraped up troops wherever they could be found. Defeats inflicted by the French Tenth Army led to the sacking of the 2nd Army Chief of Staff, Hindenburg and Ludendorff demanded domestic changes to complement their strategy changes. German workers were to be subjected to an Auxiliary Service Law that subjected all Germans from 16–50 years old to compulsory service, the new programme was intended to create a trebling of artillery and machine-gun output and a doubling of munitions and trench mortar production

4.
HMS Irresistible (1898)
–
HMS Irresistible—the fourth British Royal Navy ship of the name—was a Formidable-class pre-dreadnought battleship. Commissioned in 1902, she served with the Mediterranean Fleet until April 1908. Now outclassed with the emergence of the class of ships. In 1912, she was assigned to the 5th Battle Squadron, following the outbreak of World War I, Irresistible, along with the squadron, was assigned to the Channel Fleet. After operations with the Dover Patrol, she served in the Dardanelles Campaign, on 18 March 1915, she struck a mine, which caused severe damage and killed around 150 of her crew. Without power, she began to drift into the range of Turkish guns, with attempts to tow her having failed, she was abandoned with most of her crew having been successfully evacuated, and eventually sank. Irresistible was completed in October 1901, Irresistible had the same-calibre armament and was similar in appearance to the Majestic and Canopus classes that preceded her. She and her sister ships are described as improved Majestics. Irresistible thus was larger than the ships of the two preceding classes, and enjoyed greater protection than the Majestics and the speed of the Canopuses. Irresistibles armour scheme was similar to that of the Canopuses, although the armour belt ran all the way to the stern being 215 ft long,15 ft deep and 9 in thick. It tapered at the stem to 3 in thick and 12 ft deep, the main battery turrets had 10 in of Krupp armour on their sides and 8 in on their backs. Irresistible improved on the main and secondary armament of previous classes, being upgunned from 35- to 40-cal 12 in guns, Irresistible was commissioned at Chatham Dockyard on 4 February 1902 by Captain George Morris Henderson and a complement of 870 officers and men for Mediterranean Fleet service. She left Portsmouth in late March, arriving the following month at Gibraltar where she relieved turret ship Devastation as guard ship, in May 1902 she visited Augusta, Sicily. She underwent a refit at Malta after her grounding, and a refit there from October 1907 – January 1908. In April 1908, Irresistible transferred to the Channel Fleet, where she collided with a schooner while steaming in fog on 4 May 1908 and she was assigned to the Nore Division in 1909, and was reduced to a nucleus crew in May 1910. Her Channel Fleet service ended on 1 June 1910, when she paid off at Chatham Dockyard for a refit and her refit completed, Irresistible commissioned at Chatham on 28 February 1911 to serve in the 3rd Division, Home Fleet, at the Nore. In 1912, she was assigned to the 5th Battle Squadron, when the First World War began in August 1914, the 5th Battle Squadron was based at Portland and assigned to patrol duties in the English Channel under the Channel Fleet. Irresistible covered the landing of the Plymouth Marine Battalion at Ostend, Belgium, on 25 August, in October–November 1914, Irresistible was temporarily attached to the Dover Patrol

5.
Naval mine
–
A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to damage or destroy surface ships or submarines. Unlike depth charges, mines are deposited and left to wait until they are triggered by the approach of, or contact with, Naval mines can be used offensively—to hamper enemy shipping movements or lock vessels into a harbour, or defensively—to protect friendly vessels and create safe zones. Mines can be laid in many ways, by purpose-built minelayers, refitted ships, submarines and their flexibility and cost-effectiveness make mines attractive to the less powerful belligerent in asymmetric warfare. The cost of producing and laying a mine is usually anywhere from 0. 5% to 10% of the cost of removing it, parts of some World War II naval minefields still exist because they are too extensive and expensive to clear. It is possible for some of these 1940s-era mines to remain dangerous for many years to come, Mines have been employed as offensive or defensive weapons in rivers, lakes, estuaries, seas, and oceans, but they can also be used as tools of psychological warfare. Offensive mines are placed in enemy waters, outside harbours and across important shipping routes with the aim of sinking both merchant and military vessels. Defensive minefields safeguard key stretches of coast from enemy ships and submarines, forcing them into more easily defended areas, minefields designed for psychological effect are usually placed on trade routes and are used to stop shipping from reaching an enemy nation. They are often spread thinly, to create an impression of minefields existing across large areas, a single mine inserted strategically on a shipping route can stop maritime movements for days while the entire area is swept. International law requires nations to declare when they mine an area, the warnings do not have to be specific, for example, during World War II, Britain declared simply that it had mined the English Channel, North Sea, and French coast. Chinese records tell of naval explosives in the 16th century, used to fight against Japanese pirates and this kind of naval mine was loaded in a wooden box, sealed with putty. General Qi Jiguang made several timed, drifting explosives, to harass Japanese pirate ships, although this is the rotating steel wheellocks first use in naval mines, Jiao Yu had described their use for land mines back in the 14th century. The first plan for a sea mine in the West was by Ralph Rabbards, the Dutch inventor Cornelius Drebbel was employed in the Office of Ordnance by King Charles I of England to make weapons, including a floating petard which proved a failure. Weapons of this type were apparently tried by the English at the Siege of La Rochelle in 1627, American David Bushnell developed the first American naval mine for use against the British in the American War of Independence. It was a watertight keg filled with gunpowder that was floated toward the enemy and it was used on the Delaware River as a drift mine. In 1812 Russian engineer Pavel Shilling exploded a mine using an electrical circuit. Russian naval specialists set more than 1500 naval mines, or infernal machines, designed by Moritz von Jacobi and by Immanuel Nobel, the mining of Vulcan led to the worlds first minesweeping operation. During the next 72 hours,33 mines were swept, the Jacobi mine was designed by German born, Russian engineer Jacobi, in 1853. The mine was tied to the sea bottom by an anchor, a cable connected it to a cell which powered it from the shore

6.
Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign
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The naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign took place against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War. Ships of the Royal Navy, the French Marine nationale, the Imperial Russian Navy and Royal Australian Navy, the straits are a narrow waterway connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Black Sea, via the Aegean, Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus. The Allies also tried to pass submarines through the Dardanelles to attack Ottoman shipping in the Sea of Marmara, the mouth of the strait is 2.3 mi wide with a rapid current emptying from the Black Sea into the Aegean. The distance from Cape Helles to the Sea of Marmora is about 41 mi, overlooked by the heights on the Gallipoli peninsula and lower hills on the Asiatic shore. The narrowest part of the strait is 14 mi upstream, from Chanak to Kilid Bahr at 1,600 yd, from the point, the passage turns north-east for the final 23 mi to the Sea of Marmora. The Ottomans used the fortress to describe the sea defences of the Dardanelles on both sides of the waterway from the Aegean approaches to Chanak. In 1914 only the defences from the entrance of the straits and 4 mi from the end of Kephez Bay to Chanak had been fortified. The economic resources of the Ottoman Empire were depleted by the cost of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, in December 1913, the Germans sent a military mission to Constantinople, headed by General Otto Liman von Sanders. The geographical position of the Ottoman Empire meant that Russia, France, during the Sarajevo Crisis in 1914, German diplomats offered Turkey an anti-Russian alliance and territorial gains in Caucasia, north-west Iran and Trans-Caspia. The pro-British faction in the Cabinet was isolated due to the British ambassador taking leave until 18 August, the Ottoman policy was to obtain a guarantee of territorial integrity and potential advantages, unaware that the British might enter a European war. The unilateral action strained Ottoman-British diplomatic relations and to gain more influence, the Allies tried to intercept the ships, which escaped when the Ottoman government opened the Dardanelles to them, despite international law requiring a neutral party to block military shipping. In September, the British naval mission to the Ottomans was recalled, the German naval presence and the success of German armies in Europe, gave the pro-German faction in the Ottoman government enough influence to declare war on Russia. Hostilities began on 28 October, when the Ottoman fleet, including Goeben and Breslau, odessa and Sevastopol were bombarded, a minelayer and gunboat were sunk but the attempt to neutralise the Black Sea Fleet failed. The Ottomans refused an Allied demand that they expel the German missions and on 31 October 1914, Russia declared war on Turkey on 2 November and the British ambassador left Constantinople the next day. A British naval squadron bombarded the Dardanelles outer defensive forts at Kum Kale and Seddulbahir, Britain and France declared war on Turkey on 5 November and the Ottomans declared a jihad later that month. The Mesopotamian campaign began with a British landing to occupy the oil facilities in the Persian Gulf, the Ottomans prepared to attack Egypt in early 1915, aiming to occupy the Suez Canal and cut the Mediterranean route to British India and the Far East. Field Marshal Lord Herbert Kitchener planned a landing near Alexandretta in Syria in 1914, to sever the capital from Syria, Palestine. The White Sea in the Arctic and the Sea of Okhotsk in the Far East were icebound in winter, with the Ottoman Empire neutral, supplies could still be sent to Russia through the Dardanelles

7.
Vickers machine gun
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The Vickers machine gun or Vickers gun is a name primarily used to refer to the water-cooled.303 British machine gun produced by Vickers Limited, originally for the British Army. The machine gun typically required a six to eight-man team to operate, one fired, one fed the ammunition and it was in service from before the First World War until the 1960s, with air-cooled versions of it on many Allied World War I fighter aircraft. The weapon had a reputation for solidity and reliability. Using 100 barrels, they fired a million rounds without a failure and it was this absolute foolproof reliability which endeared the Vickers to every British soldier who ever fired one. The Vickers machine gun was based on the successful Maxim gun of the late 19th century, a muzzle booster was also added. The British Army formally adopted the Vickers gun as its machine gun on 26 November 1912. There were still great shortages when the First World War began, Vickers was, in fact, threatened with prosecution for war profiteering, due to the exorbitant price it was demanding for each gun. As a result, the price was slashed, as the war progressed, and numbers increased, it became the British Armys primary machine gun, and served on all fronts during the conflict. After the First World War, the Machine Gun Corps was disbanded, however, the Vickers remained in service with the British Army until 30 March 1968. Its last operational use was in the Radfan during the Aden Emergency and its successor in UK service is the L7 GPMG. In 1913, a Vickers machine gun was mounted on the experimental Vickers E. F. B.1 biplane, which was probably the worlds first purpose-built combat aeroplane. However, by the time the version, the Vickers F. B.5, had entered service the following year. During World War I, the Vickers gun became a weapon on British and French military aircraft. Although heavier than the Lewis, its closed bolt firing cycle made it easier to synchronize to allow it to fire through aircraft propellers. The belt feed was enclosed right up to the guns feed-way to inhibit effects from wind, steel disintegrating-link ammunition belts were perfected in the UK by William de Courcy Prideaux in mid-war and became standard for aircraft guns thereafter. The famous Sopwith Camel and the SPAD XIII types used twin synchronized Vickers, as did most British and French fighters between 1918 and the mid-1930s. Several sets of louvred slots were cut into the jacket to aid air cooling. The Gloster Gladiator was the last RAF fighter to be armed with the Vickers, the Fairey Swordfish continued to be fitted with the weapon until production ended in August 1944

8.
Gas mask
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The gas mask is a mask used to protect the user from inhaling airborne pollutants and toxic gases. The mask forms a cover over the nose and mouth. Some gas masks are also respirators, though the gas mask is often used to refer to military equipment. The user of the gas mask is not protected from gas that the skin can absorb, most gas mask filters will last around 24 hours in a nuclear biological chemical situation. Airborne toxic materials may be gaseous or particulates, many gas masks include protection from both types. During demonstrations and protests where tear gas or CS-gas is employed by police, gas masks are commonly used by police. Aside from serving their functional purposes, gas masks are used as emblems in industrial music, with the most notable example. Later, the discovery of polycarbonate allowed for gas masks with a large full-face window, some have one or two filters attached to the face mask while others have a large filter connected to the face mask with a hose, that is sometimes confused with respirators. Absorption is the process of being drawn into a body or substrate and this can be used to remove both particulate and gaseous hazards. Although some form of reaction may take place, it is not necessary, for example, if the target particles are positively charged, a negatively charged substrate may be used. Examples of substrates include activated carbon, and zeolites and this effect can be very simple and highly effective, for example using a damp cloth to cover the mouth and nose while escaping a fire. While this method can be effective at trapping particulates produced by combustion, gas masks have a limited useful lifespan that is related to the absorbent capacity of the filter. Once the filter has been saturated with hazardous chemicals, it ceases to provide protection, World War II gas masks contained blue asbestos in their filters. It is unknown how long for certain the material was used in filters, breathing blue asbestos in the factories resulted in the death of 10% of the workforce due to pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma. This rate was between 2.5 and 3.2 times the incidence of lung or respiratory cancers. Many scare stories have originated from various Russian gas masks and their filters that are now common in surplus stores, in October 2013, an asbestos lab in Salt Lake City found out that the particle filter is made of 7. 5% asbestos. The filter is made so that the asbestos fibres cannot be breathed in, nearly all Russian Cold War period masks contain asbestos. Modern gas masks are quite safe and do not use asbestos, typically, masks using 40 mm connections are a more recent design

9.
Albatros D.III
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The Albatros D. III was a biplane fighter aircraft used by the Imperial German Army Air Service during World War I. A modified licence model was built by Oeffag for the Austro-Hungarian Air Service and it was the preeminent fighter during the period of German aerial dominance known as Bloody April 1917. Development of the prototype D. III started in late July or early August 1916, the date of the maiden flight is unknown, but is believed to have occurred in late August or early September. Following the successful Albatros D. I and D. II series, however, at the request of the Idflieg, the D. III adopted a sesquiplane wing arrangement broadly similar to the French Nieuport 11. The upper wingspan was extended, while the wing was redesigned with reduced chord. V shaped interplane struts replaced the previous parallel struts, for this reason, British aircrews commonly referred to the D. III as the V-strutter. After a Typenprüfung on 26 September 1916, Albatros received an order for 400 D. III aircraft, Idflieg placed additional orders for 50 aircraft in February and March 1917. The D. III entered squadron service in December 1916, and was acclaimed by German aircrews for its maneuverability. Two faults with the new aircraft were soon identified, like the D. II, early D. IIIs featured a Teves und Braun airfoil-shaped radiator in the center of the upper wing, where it tended to scald the pilot if punctured. From the 290th D. III onward, the radiator was offset to the right on production machines while others were moved to the right as a field modification. Aircraft deployed in Palestine used two wing radiators, to cope with the warmer climate, more seriously, the new aircraft immediately began experiencing failures of the lower wing ribs and leading edge, a defect shared with the Nieuport 17. On 23 January 1917, a Jasta 6 pilot suffered a failure of the right wing spar. On the following day, Manfred von Richthofen suffered a crack in the wing of his new D. III. On 27 January, the Kogenluft issued an order grounding all D. IIIs pending resolution of the wing failure problem, on 19 February, after Albatros introduced a reinforced lower wing, the Kogenluft rescinded the grounding order. At the time, the wing failures were attributed to poor workmanship. In fact, the cause of the failures lay in the sesquiplane arrangement taken from the Nieuport. While the lower wing had sufficient strength in static tests, it was determined that the main spar was located too far aft. Pilots were therefore advised not to perform steep or prolonged dives in the D. III and this design flaw persisted despite attempts to rectify the problem in the D. III and succeeding D. V

10.
Jagdstaffel 11
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It became the most successful fighter squadron in the Luftstreitkräfte. Jasta 11s first commander was First Lieutenant Rudolf Lang, from its mobilization at Brayelles, Jasta 11s first months of operations were very undistinguished. It was not until the appointment of 24-year-old Cavalry Captain Manfred von Richthofen on 16 January 1917 as Commanding Officer that the unit commenced its path to fame and he already had 16 victories and was awarded the Pour le Merite just before he assumed his command. Between 22 January 1917 and the end of March the Jasta claimed some 36 victories, the Jastas performance is all the more extraordinary as the unit usually flew in small flights of six or fewer. Significant scorers in the unit that April were Manfred von Richthofen, Lt. Kurt Wolff, Lt. Karl Schäfer, Manfreds brother Lothar and NCO pilot Sebastian Festner. Cavalry Captain Manfred von Richthofen First Lieutenant Rudolf Lang Lt. Kurt Wolff Lt. Richthofen was promoted to command JG I, which was the second fighter wing in the history of military aviation. It was dubbed Richthofens Flying Circus because it mimicked a circuss logistics by using dedicated railway trains to transport it to forward airfields, in September 1917, Jasta 11 would be equipped with Fokker Dr. I triplanes. It would operate these until April–May 1918, when it received the Fokker D. VIIs it would use until wars end, Manfred von Richthofen remained Jasta commander until 26 June 1917, when his deputy, Leutnant Karl Allmenroeder took over. Following the latters death the day, former Jasta 11 pilot Leutnant Kurt Wolff took over after his transfer back from Jasta 29. After Wolff was wounded in September, Oberlt, wilhelm Reinhard took charge until Wolff returned. Soon after Wolff was killed in action on 15 September, thereafter Lothar took command, Jasta 11 would then have a bewildering succession of other temporary commanding officers, especially when Lothar was frequently away from the front recovering from wounds. Oberleutnant Erich Rüdiger von Wedel was the last Staffelführer, from September 1918 until the end of the war, the Jasta was demobilised at Darmstadt on 16 November 1918. Jasta 11 eventually became the highest scoring German Jasta of World War I, the first was scored on 23 January 1917, the 100th on 23 April, the 200th on 17 August, the 250th on 2 April 1918, and the 300th on 28 June 1918. It numbered no fewer than twenty aces among its ranks, in return it suffered 17 pilots killed,2 POW, and 2 killed in flying accidents. Its loss rate was less than one-tenth of its opponents. The Red Baron Combat Wing, Jagdgeschwader Richthofen in Battle

11.
Treaty of Versailles
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The Treaty of Versailles was the most important of the peace treaties that brought World War I to an end. The Treaty ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers and it was signed on 28 June 1919, exactly five years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The other Central Powers on the German side of World War I signed separate treaties, although the armistice, signed on 11 November 1918, ended the actual fighting, it took six months of Allied negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude the peace treaty. The treaty was registered by the Secretariat of the League of Nations on 21 October 1919 and this article, Article 231, later became known as the War Guilt clause. The treaty forced Germany to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions, in 1921 the total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion marks. On the other hand, prominent figures on the Allied side such as French Marshal Ferdinand Foch criticized the treaty for treating Germany too leniently, although it is often referred to as the Versailles Conference, only the actual signing of the treaty took place at the historic palace. Most of the negotiations were in Paris, with the Big Four meetings taking place generally at the Quai dOrsay, the First World War was fought across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Countries beyond the war zones were also affected by the disruption of trade, finance. In 1917, two revolutions occurred within the Russian Empire, which led to the collapse of the Imperial Government, the American war aim was to detach the war from nationalistic disputes and ambitions after the Bolshevik disclosure of secret treaties between the Allies. The existence of these treaties tended to discredit Allied claims that Germany was the power with aggressive ambitions. On 8 January 1918, United States President Woodrow Wilson issued a statement that became known as the Fourteen Points and this speech outlined a policy of free trade, open agreements, democracy and self-determination. After the Central Powers launched Operation Faustschlag on the Eastern Front and this treaty ended the war between Russia and the Central powers and annexed 1,300,000 square miles of territory and 62 million people. During the autumn of 1918, the Central Powers began to collapse, desertion rates within the German army began to increase, and civilian strikes drastically reduced war production. On the Western Front, the Allied forces launched the Hundred Days Offensive, sailors of the Imperial German Navy at Kiel mutinied, which prompted uprisings in Germany, which became known as the German Revolution. The German government tried to obtain a settlement based on the Fourteen Points. Following negotiations, the Allied powers and Germany signed an armistice, the terms of the armistice called for an immediate evacuation of German troops from occupied Belgium, France, and Luxembourg within fifteen days. In addition, it established that Allied forces would occupy the Rhineland, in late 1918, Allied troops entered Germany and began the occupation. Both the German Empire and Great Britain were dependent on imports of food and raw materials, primarily from the Americas, the Blockade of Germany was a naval operation conducted by the Allied Powers to stop the supply of raw materials and foodstuffs reaching the Central Powers

12.
Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919)
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The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye was signed on 10 September 1919 by the victorious Allies of World War I on the one hand and by the Republic of German-Austria on the other. The treaty signing ceremony took place at the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, already on 21 October 1918,208 German-speaking delegates of the Austrian Imperial Council had convened in a provisional national assembly of German-Austria at the Lower Austrian Landtag. While the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Army culminated at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, in the course of the Aster Revolution on 31 October, the newly established Democratic Republic of Hungary under Minister President Mihály Károlyi declared the real union with Austria terminated. With the Armistice of Villa Giusti on 3 November 1918, the fate of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was sealed, moreover, South Tyrol and Trentino were occupied by Italian forces and Yugoslav troops entered the former Duchy of Carinthia, leading to violent fights. An Austrian Constitutional Assembly election was held on 16 February 1919, the Assembly re-elected Karl Renner state chancellor and enacted the Habsburg Law concerning the banishment of the House of Lorraine. When Chancellor Renner arrived at Saint-Germain in May 1919, he, upon an Allied ultimatum, Renner signed the treaty on 10 September. The Treaty of Trianon in June 1920 between Hungary and the Allies completed the disposition of the former Dual Monarchy, the treaty declared that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was to be dissolved. According to article 177, the Austrian side accepted responsibility for causing the war along with the Central Powers, the treaty included war reparations of large sums of money, directed towards the Allies. The Austrian Silesia province upon the Polish–Czechoslovak War of January 1919 was split between Czech Silesia and Polish Cieszyn Silesia incorporated into Silesian Voivodeship and these cessions concerned a large German-speaking population in German Bohemia and Sudetenland. The former Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, made up of the territory the Habsburg Monarchy had annexed in the 1772 First Partition of Poland, the adjacent Bukovina in the east passed to the Kingdom of Romania. Also Bosnia and Herzegovina was given to it, austria-Hungarys only overseas possession, its concession in Tianjin, was turned over to China. Burgenland, i. e. the predominantly German-speaking western parts of the Hungarian counties of Moson, Sopron, the affiliation of the Southern Carinthian territory with its Slovene-speaking share of population was to be decided in a Carinthian Plebiscite. Accordingly, the new republics initial self-chosen name of German-Austria had to be changed to Austria, many Austrians would come to find this term harsh, due to Austrias later economic weakness, which was caused by loss of land. The economic weakness of Austria would later lead to support for the idea of Anschluss with Nazi Germany, conscription was abolished and the Austrian Army was limited to a force of 30,000 volunteers. There were numerous provisions dealing with Danubian navigation, the transfer of railways, for a time, the countrys very unity was called into question. Unlike its former Hungarian partner, Austria had never been a nation in the sense of the word. While the Austrian state had existed in one form or another for over 700 years, it had no unifying force other than loyalty to the Habsburgs

13.
Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine
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The Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine required Bulgaria to cede various territories, after Bulgaria had been one of the Central Powers defeated in World War I. The treaty was signed on 27 November 1919 at Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, the treaty required Bulgaria to cede Western Thrace to the Entente thereby cutting off Bulgarias direct outlet to the Aegean Sea. The signing ceremony was held in Neuillys town hall, in Bulgaria, the results of the treaty are popularly known as the Second National Catastrophe. Bulgaria subsequently regained South Dobruja as a result of the Treaty of Craiova, during World War II, together with Nazi Germany, it temporarily reoccupied most of the other territories ceded under the treaty. Four minor regions had been part of Bulgaria from its inception as a principality in 1878, except for the region around Strumitsa, some areas with a Bulgarian majority population were ceded to Serbia. Territories ceded by the treaty to the then Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, in Serbia, to which the term generally applies in Bulgaria, the territory ceded is split between the modern Serbian District of Pirot and District of Pčinja. It also includes a section along the Timok River in the municipality and District of Zaječar. In 1919, the area corresponded to the parts of the Bulgarian okrugs, Kyustendil,661 km2, Tzaribrod 418 km2, Tran 278 km2, Kula 172 km2. Bulgarian sources claim that the Bulgarian population made 98% of the population in Bosilegrad, in the Yugoslav census of 1931, all South Slavs were simply counted as Yugoslavs so a comparison could not be made. According to the last Census in Serbia from 2002, Bulgarians made 50%, Bulgarians in Macedonia Bulgarians in Serbia List of treaties Minority Treaties Western Outlands Borisova, Galina M. Bulgaria, Greece and Britains Policy 1919. The treaties of Neuilly-sur-Seine and Sevres, or the redefining of a new Balkan Europe, Bulgarian Historical Review-Revue Bulgare dHistoire 3-4, 99-113. Greek Macedonia and the Convention of Neuilly, Balkan Studies 3#1 pp 169-184, text of the Treaty Map of Europe at time of Treaty of Neuilly at omniatlas. com

14.
Treaty of Trianon
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The treaty regulated the status of an independent Hungarian state and defined its borders. It left Hungary as a state covering 93,073 square kilometres. Its population was 7.6 million, only 36% of the kingdoms population of 20.9 million. The areas that were allocated to neighbouring countries in total possessed a majority of non-Hungarian population, five of the pre-war kingdoms ten largest cities were drawn into other countries. The treaty limited Hungarys army to 35,000 officers and men, the principal beneficiaries of territorial division of pre-war Kingdom of Hungary were the Kingdom of Romania, the Czechoslovak Republic, and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. One of the elements of the treaty was the doctrine of self-determination of peoples. In addition, Hungary had to pay war reparations to its neighbours, the treaty was dictated by the Allies rather than negotiated and the Hungarians had no option but to accept its terms. The Hungarian delegation signed the treaty under protest on 4 June 1920 at the Grand Trianon Palace in Versailles, the treaty was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on 24 August 1921. The modern boundaries of Hungary are the same as those defined by the Treaty of Trianon except for three villages that were transferred to Czechoslovakia in 1947, the Hungarian government terminated its union with Austria on 31 October 1918, officially dissolving the Austro-Hungarian state. The de facto borders of independent Hungary were defined by the ceasefire lines in November–December 1918. On 1 December 1918, the National Assembly of Romanians in Transylvania declared union with the Kingdom of Romania, Slovakia, which became part of Czechoslovakia. That was signed on 6 December 1918, territories of Banat, Bačka and Baranja came under military control of the Kingdom of Serbia and political control of local South Slavs. The Great Peoples Assembly of Serbs, Bunjevci and other Slavs from Banat, Bačka, the ceasefire line had a character of temporary international border until the treaty. The city of Fiume was occupied by the Italian Army and its affiliation was a matter of international dispute between the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Croatian-populated territories in modern Međimurje remained under Hungarian control after the agreement of Belgrade from 13 November 1918. After the Romanian Army advanced beyond this line, the Entente powers asked Hungary to acknowledge the new Romanian territory gains by a new line set along the Tisza river. Unable to reject these terms and unwilling to accept them, the leaders of the Hungarian Democratic Republic resigned, in spite of the country being under Allied blockade, the Hungarian Soviet Republic was formed and the Hungarian Red Army was rapidly set up. In the end, this invitation was not issued

15.
Treaty of Lausanne
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The Treaty of Lausanne was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 24 July 1923. The original text of the treaty is in French, the Treaty of Lausanne ended the conflict and defined the borders of the modern Turkish Republic. In the treaty, Turkey gave up all claims to the remainder of the Ottoman Empire and in return the Allies recognized Turkish sovereignty within its new borders. The treaty was ratified by Turkey on 23 August 1923, Greece on 25 August 1923, Italy on 12 March 1924, Japan on 15 May 1924, Great Britain on 16 July 1924. The treaty came into force on 6 August 1924, when the instruments of ratification had been deposited in Paris. Negotiations were undertaken during the Conference of Lausanne, where İsmet İnönü was the negotiator for Turkey. Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary of that time, was the negotiator for the Allies. On 20 November 1922, the conference was opened and after strenuous debate was interrupted by Turkish protest on 4 February 1923. After reopening on 23 April, and following protests by the Turks and tense debates. The Allied delegation included negotiators such as U. S. Admiral Mark L. Bristol, the treaty was composed of 143 articles with major sections including, Convention on the Turkish Straits Trade Agreements Binding letters. The treaty provided for the independence of the Republic of Turkey but also for the protection of the Greek Orthodox Christian minority in Turkey and the Muslim minority in Greece. Turkey also formally accepted the loss of Cyprus as well as Egypt and Anglo-Egyptian Sudan to the British Empire, the fate of the province of Mosul was left to be determined through the League of Nations. However, the definition of Turkeys southern border in Article 3 also meant that Turkey officially ceded them and these territories included Yemen, Asir and parts of Hejaz like the city of Medina. They were held by Turkish forces until 23 January 1919, Turkey officially ceded Adakale Island in River Danube to Romania with Articles 25 and 26 of the Treaty of Lausanne, by formally recognizing the related provisions in the Treaty of Trianon of 1920. Due to a diplomatic irregularity at the 1878 Congress of Berlin, the United States Senate refused to ratify the treaty, and consequently Turkey annulled the concession. The Treaty of Lausanne led to the recognition of the sovereignty of the new Republic of Turkey as the successor state of the defunct Ottoman Empire. The Convention on the Turkish Straits lasted only thirteen years and was replaced with the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Turkish Straits in 1936, the customs limitations in the treaty were shortly reworked. Political amnesty was applied to the 150 personae non gratae of Turkey who slowly acquired citizenship — the last one was in 1974

16.
Pacific Islands
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The Pacific Islands is a term broadly referring to the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Depending on the context, it may refer to countries and islands with common Austronesian origins, islands once or currently colonized, in English, the umbrella term Pacific Islands may take on several meanings. Sometimes it refers to only those islands covered by the continent of Oceania, there are many other islands located within the boundaries of the Pacific Ocean that are not considered part of Oceania. This list includes all islands found in the geographic Pacific Ocean, with an area larger than 10,000 square kilometers

17.
Allies of World War I
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The Allies of World War I were the countries that opposed the Central Powers in the First World War. The members of the original Triple Entente of 1907 were the French Republic, the British Empire, Belgium, Serbia, Greece, Montenegro, and Romania were affiliated members of the Entente. The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres defines the Principal Allied Powers as the British Empire, French Republic, Italy, the Allied Powers comprised, together with the Principal Allied Powers, Armenia, Belgium, Greece, Hejaz, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serb-Croat-Slovene state and Czechoslovakia. The U. S. declaration of war on Germany, on 6th April 1917 was on the grounds that Germany had violated its neutrality by attacking international shipping and it declared war on Austria-Hungary in December 1917. The U. S. entered the war as a power, rather than as a formal ally of France. Although the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria severed relations with the United States, the Dominion governments did control recruiting, and removed personnel from front-line duties as they saw fit. From early 1917, the War Cabinet was superseded by the Imperial War Cabinet, in April 1918, operational control of all Entente forces on the Western Front passed to the new supreme commander, Ferdinand Foch of France. The Austrian Empire followed with an attack on the Serbian ally Montenegro on 8 August, on the Western Front, the two neutral States of Belgium and Luxembourg were immediately occupied by German troops as part of the German Schlieffen Plan. On 23 August Japan joined the Entente, which then counted seven members, the entrance of the British Empire brought Nepal into the war. In 1916, Montenegro capitulated and left the Entente, and two nations joined, Portugal and Romania, on 6 April 1917, the United States entered the war. Liberia, Siam and Greece also became allies and this was followed by Romanian cessation of hostilities, however the Balkan State declared war on Central Powers again on 10 November 1918. In response to the Germans invasion of neutral Belgium, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914, gibraltar, Cyprus and Malta were British dependencies in Europe. The UK held several colonies, protectorates, and semi-autonomous dependencies at the time of World War I, in Eastern Africa the East Africa Protectorate, Nyasaland, both Northern and Southern Rhodesia, the Uganda Protectorate, were involved in conflict with German forces in German East Africa. In Western Africa, the colonies of Gold Coast and Nigeria were involved in actions against German forces from Togoland. In Southwestern Africa, the dominion of South Africa was involved in military actions against German forces in German South-West Africa. Canada and Newfoundland were two autonomous dominions during the war that made major contributions to the British war effort. Other British dependent territories in the Americas included, British Honduras, the Falkland Islands, British Guiana, and Jamaica. The UK held large possessions in Asia, including the Indian Empire which was an assortment of British imperial authorities in the territory now defined as India, Bangladesh, Burma, australia and New Zealand were two autonomous dominions of the UK in Oceania during the war

18.
Central Powers
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The Central Powers, consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria – hence also known as the Quadruple Alliance – was one of the two main factions during World War I. It faced and was defeated by the Allied Powers that had formed around the Triple Entente, the Powers origin was the alliance of Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1879. The Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria did not join until after World War I had begun, the Central Powers consisted of the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the beginning of the war. The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers later in 1914, in 1915, the Kingdom of Bulgaria joined the alliance. The name Central Powers is derived from the location of these countries, finland, Azerbaijan, and Lithuania joined them in 1918 before the war ended and after the Russian Empire collapsed. When Russia enacted a general mobilization, Germany viewed the act as provocative, the Russian government promised Germany that its general mobilization did not mean preparation for war with Germany but was a reaction to the events between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. The German government regarded the Russian promise of no war with Germany to be nonsense in light of its general mobilization, and Germany, in turn, mobilized for war. On August 1, Germany sent an ultimatum to Russia stating that since both Germany and Russia were in a state of military mobilization, a state of war existed between the two countries. After Germany declared war on Russia, France with its alliance with Russia prepared a general mobilization in expectation of war, on 3 August 1914, Germany responded to this action by declaring war on France. This plan was hoped to gain victory against the French. Belgium was a country and would not accept German forces crossing its territory. Germany disregarded Belgian neutrality and invaded the country to launch an offensive towards Paris, europe Upon its founding in 1871, the German Empire controlled Alsace-Lorraine as an imperial territory incorporated from France after the Franco-Prussian War. It was held as part of Germanys sovereign territory, Africa Germany held multiple African colonies at the time of World War I. All of Germanys African colonies were invaded and occupied by Allied forces during the war, cameroon, German East Africa, and German Southwest Africa were German colonies in Africa. Togoland was a German protectorate in Africa, Asia The Kiautschou Bay concession was a German dependency in East Asia leased from China in 1898. It was occupied by Japanese forces following the Siege of Tsingtao, Pacific German New Guinea was a German protectorate in the Pacific. It was occupied by Australian forces in 1914, German Samoa was a German protectorate following the Tripartite Convention. It was occuiped by the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in 1914, Austria-Hungary regarded the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as being orchestrated with the assistance of Serbia

19.
Eastern Front (World War I)
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It stretched from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south, included most of Eastern Europe and stretched deep into Central Europe as well. The term contrasts with Western Front, which was being fought in Belgium, in the opening months of the war, the Imperial Russian Army attempted an invasion of eastern Prussia in the northwestern theater, only to be beaten back by the Germans after some initial success. At the same time, in the south, they successfully invaded Galicia, in Russian Poland, the Germans failed to take Warsaw. But by 1915, the German and Austro-Hungarian armies were on the advance, dealing the Russians heavy casualties in Galicia and in Poland, Grand Duke Nicholas was sacked from his position as the commander-in-chief and replaced by the Tsar himself. Several offensives against the Germans in 1916 failed, including Lake Naroch Offensive, however, General Aleksei Brusilov oversaw a highly successful operation against Austria-Hungary that became known as the Brusilov Offensive, which saw the Russian Army make large gains. The Kingdom of Romania entered the war in August 1916, the Entente promised the region of Transylvania in return for Romanian support. The Romanian Army invaded Transylvania and had successes, but was forced to stop and was pushed back by the Germans and Austro-Hungarians when Bulgaria attacked them in the south. Meanwhile, a revolution occurred in Russia in February 1917, Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate and a Russian Provisional Government was founded, with Georgy Lvov as its first leader, who was eventually replaced by Alexander Kerensky. The newly formed Russian Republic continued to fight the war alongside Romania, Kerensky oversaw the July Offensive, which was largely a failure and caused a collapse in the Russian Army. The new government established by the Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Central Powers, taking it out of the war and making large territorial concessions. Romania was also forced to surrender and signed a similar treaty, the front in the east was much longer than that in the west. This had an effect on the nature of the warfare. While World War I on the Western Front developed into trench warfare and this was because the greater length of the front ensured that the density of soldiers in the line was lower so the line was easier to break. Once broken, the communication networks made it difficult for the defender to rush reinforcements to the rupture in the line. Propaganda was a key component of the culture of World War I and it was most commonly deployed through the state-controlled media to glorify the homeland and demonize the enemy. Propaganda often took the form of images which portrayed stereotypes from folklore about the enemy or from glorified moments from the nations history, on the Eastern Front, propaganda took many forms such as opera, film, spy fiction, theater, spectacle, war novels and graphic art. Across the Eastern Front the amount of used in each country varied from state to state. Propaganda took many forms within each country and was distributed by different groups

20.
Western Front (World War I)
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The Western Front or Western Theater was the main theatre of war during World War I. Following the outbreak of war in August 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by invading Luxembourg and Belgium, the tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne. Following the Race to the Sea, both sides dug in along a line of fortified trenches, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier with France. This line remained unchanged for most of the war. Between 1915 and 1917 there were several major offensives along this front, the attacks employed massive artillery bombardments and massed infantry advances. However, a combination of entrenchments, machine gun emplacements, barbed wire, as a result, no significant advances were made. In an effort to break the deadlock, this front saw the introduction of new technology, including poison gas, aircraft. But it was only after the adoption of improved tactics that some degree of mobility was restored, the German Armys Spring Offensive of 1918 was made possible by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that marked the end of the conflict on the Eastern Front. In spite of the stagnant nature of this front, this theatre would prove decisive. The terms of peace were agreed upon with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, belgiums neutrality was guaranteed by Britain under the 1839 Treaty of London, this caused Britain to join the war at the expiration of its ultimatum at 11 pm GMT on 4 August. Armies under German generals Alexander von Kluck and Karl von Bülow attacked Belgium on 4 August 1914, Luxembourg had been occupied without opposition on 2 August. The first battle in Belgium was the Siege of Liège, which lasted from 5–16 August, Liège was well fortified and surprised the German Army under von Bülow with its level of resistance. German heavy artillery was able to demolish the main forts within a few days. Following the fall of Liège, most of the Belgian field army retreated to Antwerp, leaving the garrison of Namur isolated, with the Belgian capital, Brussels, although the German army bypassed Antwerp, it remained a threat to their flank. Another siege followed at Namur, lasting from about 20–23 August, for their part, the French had five armies deployed on their borders. The pre-war French offensive plan, Plan XVII, was intended to capture Alsace-Lorraine following the outbreak of hostilities, on 7 August the VII Corps attacked Alsace with its objectives being to capture Mulhouse and Colmar. The main offensive was launched on 14 August with 1st and 2nd Armies attacking toward Sarrebourg-Morhange in Lorraine, in keeping with the Schlieffen Plan, the Germans withdrew slowly while inflicting severe losses upon the French. The French advanced the 3rd and 4th Armies toward the Saar River and attempted to capture Saarburg, attacking Briey and Neufchateau, before being driven back

21.
German Empire
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The German Empire was the historical German nation state that existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918, when Germany became a federal republic. The German Empire consisted of 26 constituent territories, with most being ruled by royal families and this included four kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies, seven principalities, three free Hanseatic cities, and one imperial territory. Although Prussia became one of kingdoms in the new realm, it contained most of its population and territory. Its influence also helped define modern German culture, after 1850, the states of Germany had rapidly become industrialized, with particular strengths in coal, iron, chemicals, and railways. In 1871, it had a population of 41 million people, and by 1913, a heavily rural collection of states in 1815, now united Germany became predominantly urban. During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire operated as an industrial, technological, Germany became a great power, boasting a rapidly growing rail network, the worlds strongest army, and a fast-growing industrial base. In less than a decade, its navy became second only to Britains Royal Navy, after the removal of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck by Wilhelm II, the Empire embarked on a bellicose new course that ultimately led to World War I. When the great crisis of 1914 arrived, the German Empire had two allies, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, however, left the once the First World War started in August 1914. In the First World War, German plans to capture Paris quickly in autumn 1914 failed, the Allied naval blockade caused severe shortages of food. Germany was repeatedly forced to send troops to bolster Austria and Turkey on other fronts, however, Germany had great success on the Eastern Front, it occupied large Eastern territories following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. German declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 was designed to strangle the British, it failed, but the declaration—along with the Zimmermann Telegram—did bring the United States into the war. Meanwhile, German civilians and soldiers had become war-weary and radicalised by the Russian Revolution and this failed, and by October the armies were in retreat, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had collapsed, Bulgaria had surrendered and the German people had lost faith in their political system. The Empire collapsed in the November 1918 Revolution as the Emperor and all the ruling monarchs abdicated, and a republic took over. The German Confederation had been created by an act of the Congress of Vienna on 8 June 1815 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, German nationalism rapidly shifted from its liberal and democratic character in 1848, called Pan-Germanism, to Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarcks pragmatic Realpolitik. He envisioned a conservative, Prussian-dominated Germany, the war resulted in the Confederation being partially replaced by a North German Confederation in 1867, comprising the 22 states north of the Main. The new constitution and the title Emperor came into effect on 1 January 1871, during the Siege of Paris on 18 January 1871, William accepted to be proclaimed Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. The second German Constitution was adopted by the Reichstag on 14 April 1871 and proclaimed by the Emperor on 16 April, the political system remained the same. The empire had a parliament called the Reichstag, which was elected by universal male suffrage, however, the original constituencies drawn in 1871 were never redrawn to reflect the growth of urban areas

22.
Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation

23.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe

24.
Austria-Hungary
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The union was a result of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and came into existence on 30 March 1867. Austria-Hungary consisted of two monarchies, and one region, the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia under the Hungarian crown. It was ruled by the House of Habsburg, and constituted the last phase in the evolution of the Habsburg Monarchy. Following the 1867 reforms, the Austrian and the Hungarian states were co-equal, Foreign affairs and the military came under joint oversight, but all other governmental faculties were divided between respective states. Austria-Hungary was a state and one of the worlds great powers at the time. Austria-Hungary was geographically the second-largest country in Europe after the Russian Empire, at 621,538 km2, the Empire built up the fourth-largest machine building industry of the world, after the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. After 1878, Bosnia and Herzegovina was under Austro-Hungarian military and civilian rule until it was annexed in 1908. The annexation of Bosnia also led to Islam being recognized as a state religion due to Bosnias Muslim population. Austria-Hungary was one of the Central Powers in World War I and it was already effectively dissolved by the time the military authorities signed the armistice of Villa Giusti on 3 November 1918. The realms full, official name was The Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council, each enjoyed considerable sovereignty with only a few joint affairs. Certain regions, such as Polish Galicia within Cisleithania and Croatia within Transleithania, enjoyed autonomous status, the division between Austria and Hungary was so marked that there was no common citizenship, one was either an Austrian citizen or a Hungarian citizen, never both. This also meant that there were always separate Austrian and Hungarian passports, however, neither Austrian nor Hungarian passports were used in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia-Dalmatia. Instead, the Kingdom issued its own passports which were written in Croatian and French and it is not known what kind of passports were used in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was under the control of both Austria and Hungary. The Kingdom of Hungary had always maintained a separate parliament, the Diet of Hungary, the administration and government of the Kingdom of Hungary remained largely untouched by the government structure of the overarching Austrian Empire. Hungarys central government structures remained well separated from the Austrian imperial government, the country was governed by the Council of Lieutenancy of Hungary – located in Pressburg and later in Pest – and by the Hungarian Royal Court Chancellery in Vienna. The Hungarian government and Hungarian parliament were suspended after the Hungarian revolution of 1848, despite Austria and Hungary sharing a common currency, they were fiscally sovereign and independent entities. Since the beginnings of the union, the government of the Kingdom of Hungary could preserve its separated. After the revolution of 1848–1849, the Hungarian budget was amalgamated with the Austrian, from 1527 to 1851, the Kingdom of Hungary maintained its own customs controls, which separated her from the other parts of the Habsburg-ruled territories

25.
Russian Civil War
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The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war in the former Russian Empire immediately after the Russian Revolutions of 1917, as many factions vied to determine Russias political future. In addition, rival militant socialists and nonideological Green armies fought against both the Bolsheviks and the Whites, eight foreign nations intervened against the Red Army, notably the Allied Forces and the pro-German armies. The Red Army defeated the White Armed Forces of South Russia in Ukraine, the remains of the White forces commanded by Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel were beaten in Crimea and evacuated in late 1920. Lesser battles of the war continued on the periphery for two years, and minor skirmishes with the remnants of the White forces in the Far East continued well into 1923. Armed national resistance in Central Asia was not completely crushed until 1934, there were an estimated 7,000, 000–12,000,000 casualties during the war, mostly civilians. The Russian Civil War has been described by some as the greatest national catastrophe that Europe had yet seen, many pro-independence movements emerged after the break-up of the Russian Empire and fought in the war. Several parts of the former Russian Empire—Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the rest of the former Russian Empire was consolidated into the Soviet Union shortly afterwards. After the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the Russian Provisional Government was established during the February Revolution of 1917, Political commissars were appointed to each unit of the army to maintain morale and ensure loyalty. In June 1918, when it became apparent that an army composed solely of workers would be far too small. Former Tsarist officers were utilized as military specialists, sometimes their families were taken hostage in order to ensure their loyalty, at the start of the war three-quarters of the Red Army officer corps was composed of former Tsarist officers. By its end, 83% of all Red Army divisional and corps commanders were ex-Tsarist soldiers, a Ukrainian nationalist movement was active in Ukraine during the war. More significant was the emergence of an anarchist political and military movement known as the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine or the Anarchist Black Army led by Nestor Makhno, some of the military forces were set up on the basis of clandestine officers organizations in the cities. The Czechoslovak Legions had been part of the Russian army and numbered around 30,000 troops by October 1917 and they had an agreement with the new Bolshevik government to be evacuated from the Eastern Front via the port of Vladivostok to France. The transport from the Eastern Front to Vladivostok slowed down in the chaos, under pressure from the Central Powers, Trotsky ordered the disarming and arrest of the legionaries, which created tensions with the Bolsheviks. The Western Allies armed and supported opponents of the Bolsheviks, hence, many of these countries expressed their support for the Whites, including the provision of troops and supplies. Winston Churchill declared that Bolshevism must be strangled in its cradle, the British and French had supported Russia during World War I on a massive scale with war materials. After the treaty, it looked like much of material would fall into the hands of the Germans. Under this pretext began allied intervention in the Russian Civil War with the United Kingdom, there were violent clashes with troops loyal to the Bolsheviks

26.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states

27.
German colonies
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This is a list of former German colonies and protectorates outside of the European borders of Prussia and the German Empire. These were colonies unsuccessfully settled by Brandenburg-Prussia, since 1701 Kingdom of Prussia, groß Friedrichsburg, 1683–1718 Arguin, 1685–1721 Whydah, circa 1700 These territories were held briefly under lease or occupation during the early European colonizations of the New World. Leased by Brandenburg from the Danish West India Company, 1685–1720, island of Crabs, Brandenburg annexation in the Danish West Indies, 1689–1693 Tertholen,1696. These were colonies of the Habsburg Monarchy, since 1804 Austrian Empire, banquibazar & Cabelon Nicobar islands Tientsin concession These are colonies settled by and controlled by the German Empire from 1884 to 1919. Those territories constituted the German Colonial Empire, the following were German African protectorates, German East Africa, Tanganyika. In 1922 became a League of Nations mandate under the United Kingdom, a French Cameroun, which became present Cameroon. Jiaozhou Bay concession Chefoo The German Caribbean was colonised briefly in the nineteenth century

28.
Partition of the Ottoman Empire
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The partition of the Ottoman Empire was a political event that occurred after World War I and the occupation of Constantinople by British, French and Italian troops in November 1918. The partitioning was planned in several made by the Allies early in the course of World War I. As world war loomed, the Ottoman Empire sought protection but was rejected by Britain, France, and Russia, the huge conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was divided into several new states. The Ottoman Empire had been the leading Islamic state in geopolitical, cultural and ideological terms. The partitioning of the Ottoman Empire led to the rise in the Middle East of Western powers such as Britain and France and brought the creation of the modern Arab world and the Republic of Turkey. Resistance to the influence of these came from the Turkish national movement. The Ottoman Empires possessions in the Arabian Peninsula became the Kingdom of Hejaz, which was annexed by the Sultanate of Nejd, and the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen. The Empires possessions on the shores of the Persian Gulf were variously annexed by Saudi Arabia, or remained British protectorates. After the Ottoman government collapsed completely it signed the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, however, the Turkish War of Independence forced the European powers to return to the negotiating table before the treaty could be ratified. The Europeans and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey signed and ratified the new Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, superseding the Treaty of Sèvres and solidifying most of the territorial issues. One unresolved issue, the dispute between the Kingdom of Iraq and the Republic of Turkey over the province of Mosul was later negotiated under the League of Nations in 1926. The British and French partitioned the eastern part of the Middle East, also called Greater Syria, other secret agreements were concluded with Italy and Russia. The Balfour Declaration encouraged the international Zionist movement to push for a Jewish homeland in the Palestine region, while a part of the Triple Entente, Russia also had wartime agreements preventing it from participating in the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire after the Russian Revolution. The Treaty of Sèvres formally acknowledged the new League of Nations mandates in the region, the independence of Yemen, the Western powers had long believed that they would eventually become dominant in the area claimed by the weak central government of the Ottoman Empire. These powers disagreed over their contradictory post-war aims and made several dual, Syria and Lebanon became a French protectorate. French control was met immediately with armed resistance, and, in order to combat Arab nationalism, France divided the Mandate area into Lebanon, Greater Lebanon was the name of a territory created by France. It was the precursor of modern Lebanon and it existed between 1 September 1920 and 23 May 1926. France carved its territory from the Levantine land mass in order to create a haven for the Maronite Christian population

29.
League of Nations
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The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organisation founded on 10 January 1920 as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first international organisation whose mission was to maintain world peace. Its primary goals, as stated in its Covenant, included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament, at its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members. The diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a shift from the preceding hundred years. The League lacked its own armed force and depended on the Great Powers to enforce its resolutions, keep to its economic sanctions, however, the Great Powers were often reluctant to do so. Sanctions could hurt League members, so they were reluctant to comply with them, after a number of notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League ultimately proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis powers in the 1930s. Germany withdrew from the League, as did Japan, Italy, Spain, the onset of the Second World War showed that the League had failed its primary purpose, which was to prevent any future world war. The League lasted for 26 years, the United Nations replaced it after the end of the Second World War on 20 April 1946 and inherited a number of agencies and organisations founded by the League. As historians William H. Harbaugh and Ronald E. Powaski point out, the organisation was international in scope, with a third of the members of parliaments serving as members of the IPU by 1914. Its aims were to encourage governments to solve disputes by peaceful means. Annual conferences were held to help refine the process of international arbitration. Its structure consisted of a council headed by a president, which would later be reflected in the structure of the League, at the start of the 20th century, two power blocs emerged from alliances between the European Great Powers. It was these alliances that, at the start of the First World War in 1914 and this was the first major war in Europe between industrialised countries, and the first time in Western Europe that the results of industrialisation had been dedicated to war. By the time the fighting ended in November 1918, the war had had an impact, affecting the social, political and economic systems of Europe. Anti-war sentiment rose across the world, the First World War was described as the war to end all wars, the causes identified included arms races, alliances, militaristic nationalism, secret diplomacy, and the freedom of sovereign states to enter into war for their own benefit. Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, a British political scientist, coined the term League of Nations in 1914, together with Lord Bryce, he played a leading role in the founding of the group of internationalist pacifists known as the Bryce Group, later the League of Nations Union. The group became more influential among the public and as a pressure group within the then governing Liberal Party. In Dickinsons 1915 pamphlet After the War he wrote of his League of Peace as being essentially an organisation for arbitration and conciliation

30.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany

31.
French Third Republic
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It came to an end on 10 July 1940. Harsh reparations exacted by the Prussians after the war resulted in the loss of the French regions of Alsace and Lorraine, social upheaval, and the establishment of the Paris Commune. The early governments of the Third Republic considered re-establishing the monarchy, but confusion as to the nature of that monarchy, thus, the Third Republic, which was originally intended as a provisional government, instead became the permanent government of France. The French Constitutional Laws of 1875 defined the composition of the Third Republic and it consisted of a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate to form the legislative branch of government and a president to serve as head of state. The period from the start of World War I to the late 1930s featured sharply polarized politics, Adolphe Thiers called republicanism in the 1870s the form of government that divides France least, however, politics under the Third Republic were sharply polarized. On the left stood Reformist France, heir to the French Revolution, on the right stood conservative France, rooted in the peasantry, the Roman Catholic Church and the army. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 resulted in the defeat of France, after Napoleons capture by the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan, Parisian deputies led by Léon Gambetta established the Government of National Defence as a provisional government on 4 September 1870. The deputies then selected General Louis-Jules Trochu to serve as its president and this first government of the Third Republic ruled during the Siege of Paris. After the French surrender in January 1871, the provisional Government of National Defence disbanded, French territories occupied by Prussia at this time did not participate. The resulting conservative National Assembly elected Adolphe Thiers as head of a provisional government, due to the revolutionary and left-wing political climate that prevailed in the Parisian population, the right-wing government chose the royal palace of Versailles as its headquarters. The new government negotiated a settlement with the newly proclaimed German Empire. To prompt the Prussians to leave France, the government passed a variety of laws, such as the controversial Law of Maturities. The following repression of the communards would have consequences for the labor movement. The Orléanists supported a descendant of King Louis Philippe I, the cousin of Charles X who replaced him as the French monarch in 1830, his grandson Louis-Philippe, Comte de Paris. The Bonapartists were marginalized due to the defeat of Napoléon III and were unable to advance the candidacy of any member of his family, the Bonaparte family. Legitimists and Orléanists came to a compromise, eventually, whereby the childless Comte de Chambord would be recognised as king, consequently, in 1871 the throne was offered to the Comte de Chambord. Chambord believed the monarchy had to eliminate all traces of the Revolution in order to restore the unity between the monarchy and the nation, which the revolution had sundered apart. Compromise on this was if the nation were to be made whole again

32.
British Empire
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The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It originated with the possessions and trading posts established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the population at the time. As a result, its political, legal, linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread, during the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France, the independence of the Thirteen Colonies in North America in 1783 after the American War of Independence caused Britain to lose some of its oldest and most populous colonies. British attention soon turned towards Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, after the defeat of France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century. In the early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution began to transform Britain, the British Empire expanded to include India, large parts of Africa and many other territories throughout the world. In Britain, political attitudes favoured free trade and laissez-faire policies, during the 19th Century, Britains population increased at a dramatic rate, accompanied by rapid urbanisation, which caused significant social and economic stresses. To seek new markets and sources of raw materials, the Conservative Party under Benjamin Disraeli launched a period of imperialist expansion in Egypt, South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand became self-governing dominions. By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to challenge Britains economic lead, subsequent military and economic tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Britain relied heavily upon its empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on the military, financial and manpower resources of Britain, although the British Empire achieved its largest territorial extent immediately after World War I, Britain was no longer the worlds pre-eminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War, Britains colonies in Southeast Asia were occupied by Imperial Japan, despite the final victory of Britain and its allies, the damage to British prestige helped to accelerate the decline of the empire. India, Britains most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence as part of a larger movement in which Britain granted independence to most territories of the empire. The transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997 marked for many the end of the British Empire, fourteen overseas territories remain under British sovereignty. After independence, many former British colonies joined the Commonwealth of Nations, the United Kingdom is now one of 16 Commonwealth nations, a grouping known informally as the Commonwealth realms, that share a monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. In 1496, King Henry VII of England, following the successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, Cabot led another voyage to the Americas the following year but nothing was ever heard of his ships again

33.
Kingdom of Serbia
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Since 1817 the Principality was ruled by the Obrenović dynasty. The Principality, suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire, de facto achieved independence when the last Ottoman troops left Belgrade in 1867. In 1882 King Milan I proclaimed the Kingdom of Serbia and maintained a foreign policy friendly to Austria-Hungary, between 1912 and 1913 Serbia greatly enlarged its territory through engagement in the First and Second Balkan Wars - Sandžak-Raška, Kosovo Vilayet and Vardar Macedonia were annexed. As outcome of the World War I in 1918 it united with Vojvodina, the Principality of Serbia was a state in the Balkans that came into existence as a result of the Serbian revolution which lasted between 1804 and 1817. At first, the principality included only the territory of the former Pashaluk of Belgrade, but in 1831-1833 it expanded to the east, south, in 1867 the Ottoman army left the Principality, securing its de facto independence. Serbia expanded further to the south-east in 1878, when it won international recognition at the Congress of Berlin. In 1882 it was raised to the level of the Kingdom of Serbia, the Serbo-Bulgarian War erupted on November 14,1885 and lasted until November 28 of the same year. The war ended in defeat for Serbia, as it had failed to capture the Slivnitsa region which it had set out to achieve. Bulgarians successfully repelled the Serbs after the victory at the Battle of Slivnitsa and advanced into Serbian territory taking Pirot. When Austria-Hungary declared that it would join the war on the side of Serbia, Bulgaria withdrew from Serbia leaving the Serbo-Bulgarian border precisely where it had prior to the war. The peace treaty was signed on February 19,1886 in Bucharest, as a result of the war, European powers acknowledged the act of Unification of Bulgaria which happened on September 6,1885. In 1888 Peoples Radical Party led by Sava Grujić and Nikola Pašić came to power, the lost war and the Radical Partys total electoral victory were some of the reasons why King Milan I abdicated in 1889. His son Alexander I assumed the throne in 1893 and in 1894 dismissed the constitution, King Alexander I of Serbia and his unpopular wife Queen Draga, were assassinated inside the Royal Palace in Belgrade on the night of 28–29 May 1903. Other representatives of the Obrenović family were shot as well and this act resulted in the extinction of the House of Obrenović which had been ruling Serbia since 1817. After the May Coup Serbian Skupština invited Peter Karadjorjević to assume the Serbian crown as Peter I of Serbia, a constitutional monarchy was created with the military Black Hand society operating behind the scenes. The traditionally good relations with the Austria-Hungary ended, as the new dynasty relied on the support of the Russian Empire, in April 1904 the Friendship treaty and in June 1905 the customs union with Bulgaria were signed. In response Austria-Hungary imposed a Tariff War of 1906-1909, after the 1906 elections Peoples Radical Party came to power. In 1908 Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia, where Serbia had hoped to expand its territory, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Britain, Kingdom of Italy, Serbia, Principality of Montenegro, German Empire and France took an interest in these events

34.
Belgium
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Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, today, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is also a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie

35.
Kingdom of Montenegro
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The Kingdom of Montenegro, was a monarchy in southeastern Europe, present day Montenegro, during the tumultuous years on the Balkan Peninsula leading up to and during World War I. Legally it was a monarchy, but absolutist in practice. Prince Nicholas of Montenegro proclaimed the Kingdom of Montenegro in Cetinje on 28 August 1910, Montenegro joined the First Balkan War in 1912, hoping to win a share in the last Ottoman-controlled areas of Rumelia. Montenegro did make further territorial gains by splitting Sandžak with Serbia on 30 May 1913, when the Second Balkan War broke out in June 1913, Serbia fought against Bulgaria, and King Nicholas sided with Serbia. Once again Montenegro found itself tossed into war, in which it won substantial additional territory, during World War I Montenegro allied itself with the Triple Entente, in line with King Nicholas pro-Serbian policy. Accordingly, Austria-Hungary occupied Montenegro from 15 January 1916 to October 1918, on 20 July 1917, the signing of the Corfu Declaration foreshadowed the unification of Montenegro with Serbia. On 26 November 1918, Podgorica Assembly, an elected body claiming to represent Montenegrin people, unanimously adopted a resolution deposing king Nicholas I and unifying Montenegro with Serbia. During World War II, the forces in Yugoslavia considered turning the Italian governorate of Montenegro into a puppet kingdom. King Nikola and the expansion of Montenegro, 1914-1920. Media related to Kingdom of Montenegro at Wikimedia Commons Kingdom of Montenegro in 1918 Map Map Montenegro - World Statesmen

36.
Empire of Japan
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The Empire of Japan was the historical Japanese nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 to the enactment of the 1947 constitution of modern Japan. Imperial Japans rapid industrialization and militarization under the slogan Fukoku Kyōhei led to its emergence as a world power, after several large-scale military successes during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, the Empire also gained notoriety for its war crimes against the peoples it conquered. A period of occupation by the Allies followed the surrender, Occupation and reconstruction continued well into the 1950s, eventually forming the current nation-state whose full title is the State of Japan or simply rendered Japan in English. The historical state is referred to as the Empire of Japan or the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan in English. In Japanese it is referred to as Dai Nippon Teikoku, which translates to Greater Japanese Empire and this is analogous to Großdeutsches Reich, a term that translates to Greater German Empire in English and Dai Doitsu Teikoku in Japanese. This meaning is significant in terms of geography, encompassing Japan, due to its name in kanji characters and its flag, it was also given the exonym Empire of the Sun. After two centuries, the policy, or Sakoku, under the shoguns of the Edo period came to an end when the country was forced open to trade by the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. The following years saw increased trade and interaction, commercial treaties between the Tokugawa shogunate and Western countries were signed. In large part due to the terms of these Unequal Treaties, the Shogunate soon faced internal hostility, which materialized into a radical, xenophobic movement. In March 1863, the Emperor issued the order to expel barbarians, although the Shogunate had no intention of enforcing the order, it nevertheless inspired attacks against the Shogunate itself and against foreigners in Japan. The Namamugi Incident during 1862 led to the murder of an Englishman, Charles Lennox Richardson, the British demanded reparations but were denied. While attempting to exact payment, the Royal Navy was fired on from coastal batteries near the town of Kagoshima and they responded by bombarding the port of Kagoshima in 1863. For Richardsons death, the Tokugawa government agreed to pay an indemnity, shelling of foreign shipping in Shimonoseki and attacks against foreign property led to the Bombardment of Shimonoseki by a multinational force in 1864. The Chōshū clan also launched the coup known as the Kinmon incident. The Satsuma-Chōshū alliance was established in 1866 to combine their efforts to overthrow the Tokugawa bakufu, in early 1867, Emperor Kōmei died of smallpox and was replaced by his son, Crown Prince Mutsuhito. On November 9,1867, Tokugawa Yoshinobu resigned from his post and authorities to the Emperor, however, while Yoshinobus resignation had created a nominal void at the highest level of government, his apparatus of state continued to exist. On January 3,1868, Satsuma-Chōshū forces seized the palace in Kyoto. On January 17,1868, Yoshinobu declared that he would not be bound by the proclamation of the Restoration, on January 24, Yoshinobu decided to prepare an attack on Kyoto, occupied by Satsuma and Chōshū forces

37.
Kingdom of Italy
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The state was founded as a result of the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which can be considered its legal predecessor state. Italy declared war on Austria in alliance with Prussia in 1866, Italian troops entered Rome in 1870, ending more than one thousand years of Papal temporal power. Italy entered into a Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1882, victory in the war gave Italy a permanent seat in the Council of the League of Nations. Fascist Italy is the era of National Fascist Party rule from 1922 to 1943 with Benito Mussolini as head of government, according to Payne, Fascist regime passed through several relatively distinct phases. The first phase was nominally a continuation of the parliamentary system, then came the second phase, the construction of the Fascist dictatorship proper from 1925 to 1929. The third phase, with activism, was 1929–34. The war itself was the phase with its disasters and defeats. Italy was allied with Nazi Germany in World War II until 1943 and it switched sides to the Allies after ousting Mussolini and shutting down the Fascist party in areas controlled by the Allied invaders. Shortly after the war, civil discontent led to the referendum of 1946 on whether Italy would remain a monarchy or become a republic. Italians decided to abandon the monarchy and form the Italian Republic, the Kingdom of Italy claimed all of the territory which is modern-day Italy. The development of the Kingdoms territory progressed under Italian re-unification until 1870, the state for a long period of time did not include Trieste or Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, which are in Italy today, and only annexed them in 1919. After the Second World War, the borders of present-day Italy were founded, the Kingdom of Italy was theoretically a constitutional monarchy. Executive power belonged to the monarch, as executed through appointed ministers, two chambers of parliament restricted the monarchs power—an appointive Senate and an elective Chamber of Deputies. The kingdoms constitution was the Statuto Albertino, the governing document of the Kingdom of Sardinia. In theory, ministers were responsible to the king. However, in practice, it was impossible for an Italian government to stay in office without the support of Parliament, members of the Chamber of Deputies were elected by plurality voting system elections in uninominal districts. A candidate needed the support of 50% of those voting, and of 25% of all enrolled voters, if not all seats were filled on the first ballot, a runoff was held shortly afterwards for the remaining vacancies. After a brief multinominal experimentation in 1882, proportional representation into large, regional, Socialists became the major party, but they were unable to form a government in a parliament split into three different factions, with Christian Populists and classical liberals

38.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci

39.
Kingdom of Romania
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The Kingdom of Romania was a constitutional monarchy which existed between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania. As such, it is distinct from the Romanian Old Kingdom. From 1859 to 1877, Romania evolved from a union of two vassal principalities under a single prince to a full-fledged independent kingdom with a Hohenzollern monarchy. During 1918-20, at the end of World War I, Transylvania, Eastern Moldavia, in 1947 King Michael was compelled to abdicate and a socialist republic ruled by the Romanian Communist Party replaced the monarchy. The 1859 ascendancy of Alexandru Ioan Cuza as prince of both Moldavia and Wallachia under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire united an identifiably Romanian nation under a single ruler. On 5 February 1862 the two principalities were united to form the Principality of Romania, with Bucharest as its capital. On 23 February 1866 a so-called Monstrous coalition, composed of Conservatives and radical Liberals, the German prince Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was appointed as Prince of Romania, in a move to assure German backing to unity and future independence. He immediately adopted the Romanian spelling of his name, Carol, on 15 March 1881, as an assertion of full sovereignty, the Romanian parliament raised the country to the status of a kingdom, and Carol was crowned as king on 10 May. Abstaining from the Initial Balkan War against the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of Romania entered the Second Balkan War in June 1913 against the Tsardom of Bulgaria,330,000 Romanian troops moved across the Danube and into Bulgaria. One army occupied Southern Dobrudja and another moved into northern Bulgaria to threaten Sofia, Romania thus acquired the ethnically-mixed territory of Southern Dobrudja, which it had desired for years. In 1916 Romania entered World War I on the Entente side, the term came into use after World War I, when the Old Kingdom was opposed to Greater Romania, which included Transylvania, Banat, Bessarabia, and Bukovina. Nowadays, the term mainly has a historical relevance, and is used as a common term for all regions in Romania included in both the Old Kingdom and present-day borders. Romania delayed in entering World War I, but ultimately declared war on the Central Powers in 1916, War with the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919 resulted in the occupation of Budapest by Romanian troops and the end of Béla Kuns Bolshevik regime. At the Paris Peace Conference, Romania received territories of Transylvania, part of Banat, Bessarabia, thus, Romania in 1920 was more than twice the size it had been in 1914. Although the country was satisfied and had no territorial claims, it aroused the enmity of Bulgaria, and especially Hungary. Greater Romania now encompassed a significant minority population, especially of Hungarians, by contrast, the prewar Romanian state had only one real minority, Jews, but nonetheless anti-Semitism was widespread. Transylvania had significant Hungarian and German population, and with a contemptuous attitude towards Romanians. Both groups were excluded from politics as the postwar Romanian regime passed an edict stating that all personnel employed by the state had to speak Romanian

40.
First Portuguese Republic
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The last movement instituted a military dictatorship known as Ditadura Nacional that would be followed by the corporatist Estado Novo regime of António de Oliveira Salazar. As far as the October 1910 Revolution is concerned, a number of studies have been made. This vision clashes with an interpretation of the First Republic as a progressive. A republican Constitution was approved in 1911, inaugurating a parliamentary regime with reduced presidential powers, the constitution generally accorded full civil liberties, the religious liberties of Catholics being an exception. The First Republic was intensely anti-clerical and they were secularists and indeed were following liberal tradition of disestablishing the powerful role the Catholic Church once held. Under the leadership of Afonso Costa, the minister, the revolution immediately targeted the Catholic Church, churches were plundered, convents were attacked. Scarcely had the government been installed when it began devoting its entire attention to an anti-religious policy. On 10 October – five days after the inauguration of the Republic – the new government decreed that all convents, monasteries, all residents of religious institutions were expelled and their goods confiscated. The Jesuits were forced to forfeit their Portuguese citizenship, a series of anti-Catholic laws and decrees followed each other in rapid succession. In addition, the ringing of bells to signal times of worship was subjected to certain restraints. The government also interfered in the running of seminaries, reserving the right to appoint professors and this whole series of laws authored by Afonso Costa culminated in the law of Separation of Church and State, which was passed on 20 April 1911. Even the PRP had to endure the secession of its more moderate elements, who formed conservative republican parties like the Evolutionist Party and the Republican Union. In spite of these splits the PRP, led by Afonso Costa, preserved its dominance, in view of these tactics, a number of opposition forces resorted to violence in order to enjoy the fruits of power. There are few recent studies of this period of the Republic’s existence, nevertheless, an essay by Vasco Pulido Valente should be consulted, as should the attempt to establish the political, social, and economic context made by M. Villaverde Cabral. The Republic repelled a royalist attack on Chaves in 1912 and these domestic objectives were not met, since participation in the conflict was not the subject of a national consensus and since it did not therefore serve to mobilise the population. Quite the opposite occurred, existing lines of political and ideological fracture were deepened by Portugals intervention in the First World War, the lack of consensus around Portugal’s intervention in turn made possible the appearance of two dictatorships, led by General Pimenta de Castro and Sidónio Pais. Sidonismo, also known as Dezembrismo, aroused a strong interest among historians, António José Telo has made clear the way in which this regime predated some of the political solutions invented by the totalitarian and fascist dictatorships of the 1920s and 1930s. Sidónio Pais undertook the rescue of traditional values, notably the Pátria, the State carved out an economically interventionist role for itself while, at the same time, repressing working-class movements and leftist republicans

41.
Kingdom of Hejaz
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The Kingdom of Hejaz was a state in the Hejaz region in the Middle East ruled by the Hashemite dynasty. The new kingdom had a life and then was conquered in 1925 by the neighbouring Sultanate of Nejd under a resurgent House of Saud, creating the Kingdom of Hejaz. On 23 September 1932, the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd joined the Saudi dominions of Al-Hasa and Qatif, the Sharif of Mecca was an office appointed by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire in their capacity as Caliph. The role went to a member of the Hashemite family, but the Sultans typically used inter-familial rivalry to pick and choose from among contenders and so ensure that the Sharif remained weak. The British already had a series of treaties with other Arab leaders in the region and were fearful that the Hejaz could be used as a base to attack their shipping to. The British though, were compromised by their agreement to give the French control of Syria and did not, in Husseins eyes, nevertheless, they did eventually create Hashemite-ruled kingdoms in Jordan and Iraq alongside Hejaz. Hussein thus refused to conclude a treaty of friendship with the British who then later felt powerless to intervene when another British client, Hussein bin Ali Ali bin Hussein Sharif of Mecca Hashemite History of Saudi Arabia Hejazi dialect T. E. Lawrence Palestinian flag

42.
Kingdom of Greece
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The Kingdom of Greece was a state established in 1832 at the Convention of London by the Great Powers. It was internationally recognized by the Treaty of Constantinople, where it also secured full independence from the Ottoman Empire and this event also marked the birth of the first, fully independent, Greek state since the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottomans in the mid-15th century. The Kingdom succeeded from the Greek provisional governments after the Greek War of Independence, in 1924 the monarchy was abolished, and the Second Hellenic Republic was established. The restored Kingdom of Greece lasted from 1935 to 1973, the Kingdom was again dissolved in the aftermath of the seven-year military dictatorship, and the Third Republic, the current Greek government, came to be. Most of Greece gradually became part of the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, the Ottoman advance into Greece was preceded by victory over the Serbs to its north. This was followed by a draw in the 1389 Battle of Kosovo, with no further threat by the Serbs and the subsequent Byzantine civil wars, the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453 and advanced southwards into Greece, capturing Athens in 1458. The Greeks held out in the Peloponnese until 1460, and the Venetians and Genoese clung to some of the islands, the mountains of Greece were largely untouched, and were a refuge for Greeks to flee foreign rule and engage in guerrilla warfare. Cyprus fell in 1571, and the Venetians retained Crete until 1670, the Ionian Islands were only briefly ruled by the Ottomans, and remained primarily under the rule of Venice. In 1821, the Greeks rose up against the Ottoman Empire, following a protracted struggle, the autonomy of Greece was first recognized by the Great Powers in 1828, full independence was recognized in 1830. Count Ioannis Kapodistrias became Governor of Greece in 1827, but was assassinated in 1831, at the insistence of the Powers, the 1832 Treaty of London made Greece a monarchy. Pedro of Braganza, Prince Royal of Portugal, Brazil, Otto of Wittelsbach, Prince of Bavaria was chosen as its first King. Otto arrived at the capital, Nafplion, in 1833 aboard a British warship. Ottos reign would prove troubled, but managed to last for 30 years before he and his wife, Queen Amalia, left the way they came, nevertheless, they laid the foundations of a Greek administration, army, justice system and education system. Otto was sincere in his desire to give Greece good government, in addition, the new Kingdom tried to eliminate the traditional banditry, something that in many cases meant conflict with some old revolutionary fighters who continued to exercise this practice. But Greece still had no legislature and no constitution, Greek discontent grew until a revolt broke out in Athens in September 1843. Otto agreed to grant a constitution, and convened a National Assembly which met in November, the new constitution created a bicameral parliament, consisting of an Assembly and a Senate. Power then passed into the hands of a group of politicians, Greek politics in the 19th century was dominated by the national question. Greeks dreamed of liberating them all and reconstituting a state embracing all the Greek lands and this was called the Great Idea, and it was sustained by almost continuous rebellions against Ottoman rule in Greek-speaking territories, particularly Crete, Thessaly and Macedonia

43.
Thailand
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Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand, formerly known as Siam, is a country at the centre of the Indochinese peninsula in Southeast Asia. With a total area of approximately 513,000 km2, Thailand is the worlds 51st-largest country and it is the 20th-most-populous country in the world, with around 66 million people. The capital and largest city is Bangkok, Thailand is a constitutional monarchy and has switched between parliamentary democracy and military junta for decades, the latest coup being in May 2014 by the National Council for Peace and Order. Its capital and most populous city is Bangkok and its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast, and Indonesia and India on the Andaman Sea to the southwest. The Thai economy is the worlds 20th largest by GDP at PPP and it became a newly industrialised country and a major exporter in the 1990s. Manufacturing, agriculture, and tourism are leading sectors of the economy and it is considered a middle power in the region and around the world. The country has always been called Mueang Thai by its citizens, by outsiders prior to 1949, it was usually known by the exonym Siam. The word Siam has been identified with the Sanskrit Śyāma, the names Shan and A-hom seem to be variants of the same word. The word Śyâma is possibly not its origin, but a learned, another theory is the name derives from Chinese, Ayutthaya emerged as a dominant centre in the late fourteenth century. The Chinese called this region Xian, which the Portuguese converted into Siam, the signature of King Mongkut reads SPPM Mongkut King of the Siamese, giving the name Siam official status until 24 June 1939 when it was changed to Thailand. Thailand was renamed Siam from 1945 to 11 May 1949, after which it reverted to Thailand. According to George Cœdès, the word Thai means free man in the Thai language, ratcha Anachak Thai means kingdom of Thailand or kingdom of Thai. Etymologically, its components are, ratcha, -ana- -chak, the Thai National Anthem, written by Luang Saranupraphan during the extremely patriotic 1930s, refers to the Thai nation as, prathet Thai. The first line of the anthem is, prathet thai ruam lueat nuea chat chuea thai, Thailand is the unity of Thai flesh. There is evidence of habitation in Thailand that has been dated at 40,000 years before the present. Similar to other regions in Southeast Asia, Thailand was heavily influenced by the culture and religions of India, Thailand in its earliest days was under the rule of the Khmer Empire, which had strong Hindu roots, and the influence among Thais remains even today. Voretzsch believes that Buddhism must have been flowing into Siam from India in the time of the Indian Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire, later Thailand was influenced by the south Indian Pallava dynasty and north Indian Gupta Empire. The Menam Basin was originally populated by the Mons, and the location of Dvaravati in the 7th century, the History of the Yuan mentions an embassy from the kingdom of Sukhothai in 1282

The Battle of the Somme (French: Bataille de la Somme, German: Schlacht an der Somme), also known as the Somme …

British aerial photograph of German trenches north of Thiepval, 10 May 1916, with the German forward lines to the lower left. The crenellated appearance of the trenches is due to the presence of traverses.

A young German Sommekämpfer in 1916

British troops moving up to the attack during the Battle of Morval, 25 September 1916.

A naval mine is a self-contained explosive device placed in water to damage or destroy surface ships or submarines. …

Polish wz. 08/39 contact mine. The protuberances near the top of the mine, here with their protective covers, are called Hertz horns, and these trigger the mine's detonation when a ship bumps into them.

British Mk 14 sea mine

A 14th-century drawn illustration of a naval mine and page description from the Huolongjing